


Dwarves in Space: Tempus Interruptus

by IntrovertedWife



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dwarves, Elves, Fluff and Humor, Funny, Humor, Satire, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Space Flight, Space Opera, Time - Freeform, Time Travel, djinn, joke, scifi, space hole
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-04-14 05:19:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 31,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4552143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntrovertedWife/pseuds/IntrovertedWife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thousands of years after the jewelry's destroyed, the sword reforged, the dragon ridden, and the indecipherable prophecy translated into a recipe for sugared biscuits, the dwarves turned to that final frontier: space. And along came the elves, orcs, gnomes, trolls, ogres, and those vermin-like upstarts, humans.</p>
<p>Dwarves in Space is Tolkien merged with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in a horrific transporter accident.</p>
<p>Drake Bane thought things were going pretty good in his world, right until he had a troll smashing him against a goblin mob boss' desk. Tasked with "liberating" an ancient relic from the dwarven antiquities board, Drake thinks he found the perfect mark to use her ship...until the relic embeds into her hand.</p>
<p>Now they're running across the galaxy from the Corps while captain Variel succumbs to an unexplainable sickness from the relic burrowed into her skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

_See the galaxy! Make your own hours! Great benefits!_

Comm Tech Barrus recited the ad under his breath while drizzling the last of the lukewarm noodles into his mouth. The “great benefits” gurgled beside his raised feet, his coffee long over boiled. But someone had to fix the downed ether buoys lest a harried trader miss one second of a conference call. And it’s not like SkyTalk was going to invest in cheap gnome labor. They prided themselves on only hiring humans; poor, busted down humans who’ll take whatever scraps they get.

The quiet gave Barrus time and a half to think, but that was the problem. On the edges of the galaxy, while zipping from one wyrmpinch to another, or trapped inside a suit tinkering with a comm buoy, he discovered to his chagrin there wasn’t much inside his gasping mind. Most of his thoughts circled back around to dinner and how he’d probably mount a hamburger when he got back home.

One of the trademarked klaxons bleated from beside his pile of noodle wrappers. Sighing, Barrus dropped his shoes and inched forward to glare at the console. The little button flashed thrice. He tapped it, trying to coo the fading fuse back to life. For a moment the light returned normal, but it gave up the ghost and cut out.

“Great. Something else for me to fix.” The repair ships were an “investment” for technicians as well as the uniform coated in noodle stains and his training. Because of the cost, people who finally succumb to space madness were quick to pawn theirs off on the next unlucky sot to take the job.

Wiping down his face, Barrus paused as another alarm went off - more pained than the first. His hand dropped towards the diagnostic macro and the entire control console lit up in rage.

“What the shi-”

A force yanked Barrus out of his chair and across the bulkhead. The cabin lights flickered in rage, strobbing with the dying brain of the ship. A cacophony pounded across his temples but left no noise in his ears. He screamed through the smothering silence, but his voice skipped over the vowels and shuddered up and down octaves. Finally, the lights failed and blackness reigned.

Barrus stumbled to his knees, his hands around his ears. Something wet dribbled across both of his palms, which he smeared across the deck trying to right himself. “Where are those fucking emergency lights?” He hunted in the total dark for the latch to the torches, smashing his thumb into the uprighted chair legs.

Pulling open the door, he tossed aside some rations and an emergency breather to pick up the torch. Just as he was about to flip the switch, the emergency lights rose. The throbbing red light bathed his cabin. “Took ya long enough,” he muttered to himself but still kept hold of the torch. Rising to his feet, he peered across the console out the view screen and shrieked.

Where dark space and a smattering of stars should be, a hole twisted, silver poured into the edges. The hole rolled at a constantly changing speed, and sometimes reversed direction. Barrus reached for his chair to fall down in it, forgetting it tumbled in whatever explosion created that. His ass smashed to the grating, but the pain didn’t register. Images, data points, a pinched woman’s droning all pulled up what little he knew of a black hole. But this thing was walking distance from his ship, and he didn’t feel any gravitational pull. By space standards they were stationary.

He laughed to himself. Whatever it was, at least it wasn’t having any effect. Rising off his bruised hocks, he tried to prod the console to life. Surely something like this had to have a major finders fee. Maybe they’d even name it after him. The Mark Barrus hole! It’d have to be enough to get him out of this—

A noise skittered down the hall. The hall attached to the fold down bed on the one man spaceship. Barrus swung around, trying to hunt down a nonexistent knocked can or loose toolbox rolling across the floor. Gripping the torch tighter Barrus swallowed down the stomach in his throat and called out, “Hello! Is anyone there?”

He felt relieved and foolish when nothing answered back. Right, just getting jumpy—

“I said, who are you?” echoed through the ship.

“Fucking hell!” Barrus cursed, spinning around to find the voice. “I…I’ll have you know you’re trespassing on SkyTalk property, whoever you are.”

Shining the weak torchlight down the hall, Barrus tried to peer into the hellfire of the emergency lighting. It could be his imagination, or a week of eating expired noodles, but he swore a shadow blacker than the air moved.

“Who are you?” Barrus called out. “What are you doing here?”

“This isn’t funny,” echoed back, the voice peeved.

“I said, who are you?!” Barrus screamed, rage replacing the terror.

Boots shuffled just out of sight, the shadow moving, but no more voices mocked him. Perhaps it was a rodent that stowed away and he was losing his mind to space madness. That makes perfect sense. Complete and utter mental breakdown is preferable to—

A clicking noise reverberated in the shadows and a light burst from the end of the ship. It trembled in the air and the voice, a familiar voice, mumbled, “Oh shit.”

“You can be tried for trespassing. Strung up for stowing away,” Barrus tried to get the upper hand.

“You’re trespassing,” the voice mocked him.

“This isn’t funny!” Barrus shouted back, waving the torch. Rage wiped away common sense, and he stepped towards the man mocking him. He slid closer, trying to steady the light, and kept talking, “Don’t resist. You have nowhere to go but space. I’ll be lenient on you. They’ll be lenient on you.”

“Fucking hell!” the voice shouted. Barrus was close enough now he could see the shadow was man sized, and probably not an alien. Its own torch light burned Barrus’ eyes and he blinked against the assault.

“Tell me who you are!” Barrus shouted once more. There were tales of wanderers - people who couldn’t afford passage back down to a planet so they were left begging for scraps off any passing ship. Some turned to stowing away for passage or even looting. They could also be powerful with madness.

“That can’t be,” the voice said suddenly.

Barrus steadied his hand and lifted the torch light towards the head of the shadow. It almost slipped from his fingers as he stared into a mirror image of himself. The same three week stubble, the black circles under the eyes, even the chipped tooth glared past him.

“No,” Barrus muttered, sliding his foot back, “that can’t be.”

A voice whispered behind him, “They’ll be lenient on you.”

Barrus spun around. Standing beside the console were another three copies of himself. One was hunting around the ground for the torch in his hand, another was glaring through him, and the last sat in the chair eating the same noodles he already ate.

“Oh, shit.”


	2. Drake Bane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drake's day keeps getting worse and worse.

Drake Bane flashed his patent pending megawatt smile at the troll filling the doorway. The guard didn’t even glance down at the nervous human trying to play this meeting off as his idea. Still, Drake flexed his fingers and risked a glance at the missing nail. Things were stubborn as hell about growing back.

“Is he here?” the voice echoed around the troll and froze his blood. The troll glanced behind itself and bobbed that rock for a head.

“Send him in.”

“The boss says…”

Drake waved the troll aside and jutted his chin out, “I heard her. Now please, unless you want me to crawl under your legs, move aside.”

The bodyguard leaned down as far as the thick troll hide allowed, and the beady black eyes glared into Drake’s, but his impudent blue had already moved on. Grumbling deep in its gut, the troll landslide shifted aside.

Despite being on a space station, a false sunlight hovered behind the woman behind the desk. Shit, she was the one organizing half the illegal activities along the troll-goblin borders. With the kind of coin she shat out before breakfast, she could buy herself her own little planet, but there was tradition.

A pinching of rouge circled around her giant black eyes ending in a point to the side. The gigantic green skinned nose was pierced with three different sparkling gems. What little of hair goblin’s had was wound in a twist and draped across her suited shoulder.

“My lady, Oless,” Drake began, bowing deep and flailing his arms.

“Skip it, Mr. Bane,” she muttered, her claws tapping across the crimson desk. “You know why you’re here.”

“It was all a big misunderstanding,” he said looking up at her from his bow. “A small jest in the heart of the moment.”

“Rather than deliver the goods to my associates you seem to have…” Oless paused and shouted to her body guard, “What was the report, Lichtor?”

The troll cracked his head sized knuckles while answering, “Bragged to three corps officers and handed it over in exchange for them not tossing his puny ass in prison.”

“Right. That,” Oless answered. Drake saw himself reflected in those bottomless black eyes. It was easy to see how goblins could do so well in the organized crime business.

“Now see, what you don’t have is the full picture. Your contact never bothered to show. I needed to keep the vials of enzyme cool, so I slipped into a bar. They have ice,” Drake danced about the room while spinning his tale. “Except, after dumping the ice in the baggie, these two men spotted the vials and threatened to end my life for them.”

“Not much of a deal,” Lichtor snorted.

Drake ignored him, “A minor scuffle broke out and the bartender panicked, calling in the corps. What could I do but play the innocent and wounded party lest it somehow leak back to you, Oless.”

The goblin only blinked once, her boxy forehead puckering as she listened to his tall tale. “I see. A curious story because what I have is first hand evidence that you became so inebriated you missed the contact’s window, stumbled into a new bar, and bragged to the first uniformed female you spotted.”

“That’s all hearsay,” Drake insisted. “You can’t trust that stuff. I was there. I know what really happened.”

Oless’ eyes flickered up and the door slammed behind Drake. He tried to not picture it as the lid to his coffin. “I can pay you back!” Drake tried, filling the silent air with the first platitude he thought of.

“With what? You own nothing to your name save an ancient cruiser scrapped twice over.”

“I…” Drake hunted around the tiny room stacked with cases holding various shades of marbles. “It’s not like those tiny vials could have been worth much, right?”

A crack reverberated from Lichtor popping his fingers. Oless tapped her long fingers against her folded arms and said,

“Each sample of the M6-KL enzyme could help manufacture a literal tons worth of Unicorn.”

“Shit,” Drake muttered to himself. He had no idea what he was carrying, he made it a rule to not ask. Oless’s black eyes danced up to her bodyguard and one hundred pounds of troll fist grabbed the back of Drake’s coat collar. He scrabbled to dig his puny human nails in but they only bent against the troll hide. Lichtor caught Drake’s kicking legs and hurled the human across the blood red desk.

A few of the others in the game used to whisper about Oless’ seat of power. They said back in the early days that desk was brown as any other wood. But those who crossed the Goblin Lady were bled across it, sometimes for days, while she stood and watched each agonizing minute.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Drake cried, gasping through the troll fist crushing his larynx. “Whatever you want, whatever you need, I’ll do it!”

Oless nudged her head and Lichtor’s grip slackened for a moment letting air break down Drake’s throat. “I may have a use for you, actually.”

“Anything!”

“There is a relic, an artifact dating back centuries from the efrete empire.”

Drake bobbed his head as if that meant anything. There were so many damn species in the galaxy, he was lucky to remember who the big four were.

“I need you to steal it for me…” Oless paused, savoring the blow, “from the dwarven antiquities board.”

A moan rolled out of the human as he squirmed below the troll’s grasp. It was one thing to poke into the affairs of goblins, trolls, ogres, gargoyles, his own people, but no one fucked with the dwarves. Most other species gave you a few years in a facility pretending you learned right from wrong, but dwarves went right for your livelihood. They invented future garnishes, where some actuary sat around predicting how little a person actually needed to survive and proceeded to fine you for the rest of your possible future salary. If you failed to make the imaginary payments, they’d hit you with a new fine.

Oless twisted her head at his discomfort, those lizard eyes blinking both sets of lids quickly, “Or, I could let Lichtor finish the job.”

“I’ll do it!” Drake squeaked, before dragging his voice down and repeating, “I’ll do it. I’ll get your arti-whatever.”

Lichtor’s hand inched tighter around his neck, but Oless narrowed that lipless mouth and he released Drake. The human rose, pawing at his neck.

Oless ignored his distress and held out her hand. An image of the artifact appeared on her PALM. Shaped like a six point star done in a silver metal, a ruby the size of a baby’s fist nestled in the middle. Drake opened his own PALM and accepted a copy of the file, the star now filling his hand. “I didn’t think you went in for the jewelry robbing business,” he rasped, massaging his throat.

“Never you mind what I want it for. You acquire it and return it to me, and your debt will be wiped clean.”

“Just like that?” Drake asked.

“I am a woman of my word,” Oless smiled, bowing her bulbous head. “If you fail to return with that object. If you attempt to swindle or run, you will be found, loaded inside a crate, and bled across my desk. Do I make myself clear?”

Drake bobbed his head, “Okay, okay, okay. I’ll head off to…” He inspected the tiny text filing the bottom of his hand screen,

“Raptor this second.” Still watching the rotating image, Drake swung his legs off the desk and hopped down.

“Oh, and Mr. Bane, one more thing.” He closed his hand and turned to his new boss/possible executioner. “I will be retaining your ship as collateral.”

“You can’t do that!” he shouted.

“I am afraid I just did. Mr. Lichtor,” she waved to the troll who pushed open the door with one fist and shoved Drake out it with the other. He fell to his ass, his feet flying over his head and rolling across the frozen deck of what was once a packing plant. Pain thundered from his hand, and Drake raised the offended finger to his face.

“Great, broke another one,” he prodded the dangling nail ripped from its bed.

 

* * *

 

Hands patted Drake about the shoulder, but he didn’t respond. Seven years working, and scrimping, and occasionally thieving, and he still didn’t have the engines quite right. They needed a new something or other to really get that motor noise reverberating. Now his baby sat idle under the lock of Oless’ dummy corporation. How the shit was he gonna pull this off?

“You stepped in it good, didn’t ya Drakey?”

He finally looked up from the half empty glass of ale and glowered at the dwarf that’d been pestering him since he wandered into this watering hole. Calling it a bar would give it too much class. It couldn’t even muster a hole in the wall as someone removed the fourth one ages back and replaced it with contraband crates.

“Shut your gob, Klack,” Drake mumbled, lapsing back into depression. It seemed the safest place for one Drake Bane, wanted thief and smuggler to be.

Klack nodded his fuzzy head, the cobalt hair puffing from his head to his chin, then kept right on talking, “Messing with the Ols, that’s the best way to get your innards to meet your outers, if’n ya know what I mean.”

“I needed the money,” Drake repeated for the third time. Klack was a station leech, someone who suckered onto the healthy economy and drained it dry - preferably before anyone noticed. He’d sell his own leg to make a dime for his arm, was slightly smarter than the crud coating Drake’s glass, and was probably his closest friend.

“So…” Klack drew out the word as he stared around the trough. A few patrons grew to many as Drake sulked away the hours. Someone big must be moving a lot of stiffs for this place to be so full. Goblins, trolls, ogres — he even spotted an elf. Though the pointy ear snuffled his tiny nose at the offerings and sauntered off.

“If’n ya lost your ship to Ols, and the only way to get it back…”

“And keep my blood.”

“And keeping’ yer blood is by traveling to some distant planet and stealing a little tchotchke, how’re ya gonna pull that off?”  
Drake burrowed his head into his hands and mumbled under his breath. Klack knew exactly how royally screwed he was. In order to get his ship back he had to leave, but the only way he could do that was with his own ship.

“What was that?” Klack asked.

“I said sod off,” Drake answered. Pinching his nose, he threw what was probably fermented motor oil down his throat. It scoured his esophagus but didn’t burn away the remaining braincells. Maybe that was the trick, drink until he couldn’t feel pain and let Oless have him.

Klack asked, “Why don’t ya ‘book passage’ on one of the other ships zipping in and out of here?”

“Ha,” Drake laughed at the implications. He stowed away exactly once in his life and still had the prison scars to remind him why that was a terrible idea. Anyone, especially smugglers, would have their AI honed to scan for unaccounted bodies. What he needed was someone to let him onto their ship, but that wasn’t going to happen either, not with his current standings in the eyes of the law.

And Oless knew it. She gave him just enough rope so she could savor that moment of hope before yanking the noose around his neck. Drake smashed his face into the table, bashing in his nose. Klack patted him on the shoulder, not in a comforting manner, more like he was checking for weapons.

A voice echoed through the trough, ecstasy reverberating every syllable, “That was a great haul. We should celebrate!” Drake lifted his head from the table at the tone. A woman stood where the entrance would be, a human woman. Beside her toddled a dwarf, his brown skin covered in a shimmering white powder. He seemed in less of a celebratory mood.

“It’s gonna take me ages to clean this shit off,” the dwarf whined, clawing at the white powder hardening in the air.  
The woman waved her hand at him, “Psh. It’s not that bad, Orn.”

“You didn’t get dropped into it.”

“We got paid didn’t we? That’s a win either way.”

“Says the woman who, once again, didn’t fall into a giant crate of gargoyle glue. What even is this shit?”  
The woman was so far past a butterface she moved into clotted cream territory, but she carried herself as if the denizens of a mob controlled space station didn’t concern her. Drake couldn’t stop watching.

“One drink,” she wheedled the dwarf, gesturing to the bar.

Paling at the broken fuselage that passed for the bar proper, the dwarf shook his head. “I don’t have time to update my shots.”

“Fine, you get on back to the ship. I’ll top off a few then join you.”

A bounce returned to the gluey dwarf’s step and he saluted the woman, “Aye aye, Captain!”  
She growled at him, but the dwarf already sauntered off, chunks of glue left in his wake. The woman approached the bar, chatting up the troll so carved up from battle it looked like a cliffside. She didn’t bat an eye at him.

Drake wiped the pooling oil off his mouth and tried to style his hair. Klack noticed the change in demeanor and asked, “Whatcha got rattling in those brains?”

Smirking so deep it shifted into a smile, Drake gestured towards the woman and said, “The answer just walked through the door.” Before Klack could ask what the hell he meant, Drake glided towards the bar.

The woman poked at a few bottles that passed for a menu, “Nah, nah, ooh! Do you have any green?”

Nodding slowly, the troll bartender reached behind the bar and unearthed a bottle glowing a radioactive green. It wasn’t really radioactive, but no one was 100% certain what went into making the thing. Someone took the best hallucinogenics from the elves, the richest alcohol from humans, the sweetest dopamine-raisers from the dwarves, then mixed it all up. There was probably something from the trolls, ogres, and gargoyles as well just to even it out, but most people forgot what their own species was after a glass.

“One?” the bartender asked.

“It’s a celebration of sorts, so two! Why the shit not?” the woman said holding out her hand.

The troll didn’t respond as he doubled the order, filling the glass to the top. As she picked up the glass, Drake slid beside her. “Excuse me, my good sir.” Glaring, the bartender turned towards him. “Might I have another?” Drake rattled his glass getting a massive boulder roll, but the troll grabbed it and began to refill.

Leaning towards the woman he said, “It’s nice to see another human out here.”

She took a sip and placed the still full glass down, “Not a lot venture into the broken borders.”

“They’re missing out on so much fun,” Drake said waving his arms around the decrepit bar. This got the laugh he hoped for and he soldiered into stage two, “My name’s Drake. Drake Bane.”

For a moment her eyes narrowed and she took a longer drink. Still, she answered him, “I’m Variel.”

He forgot the name the second it left her mouth. “You come to smuggler’s cove often?”

“Only when I’m dealing with ‘reputable businesses.’” She lifted her glass at the sarcasm and took another drink.

“You know what I hate the most about it? The posturing.”

“Gods, yes! I’m sorry, I have to take this meeting in the middle of a meat locker so you know just how bad ass I am. Please…” she snorted, shaking her head. For a moment the light landed across the right side of her face, revealing a deep scar that ran jagged from her eyebrow down to her lip. Something about the pattern rang a note in Drake’s head, but he couldn’t remember where he heard it from. Maybe this wasn’t as easy a mark as he thought. Even the troll seemed to demure to the woman.

She finished off her drink, putting some grown ogres to shame, and he felt the piercing dark eyes scrape across his soul. Drake glanced towards Klack, trying to dig up an easy escape.

“So,” the Captain said, turning over her empty glass, “you wanna get out of here?”


	3. Chapter 3

Her first thought was at least _I’m not dead_ followed quickly by _but I wish I were_. Something inhuman scrabbled out her throat as Variel attempted to lift her head. Nausea yanked her head back down and did a few more flips up and down her throat for good measure.

With an arm still shielding her eyes, she reached across her cheap ass bed and pawed at the nightstand. A shoe tumbled off and crashed to the floor, the sound drilling into her teeth. Ignoring the errant footwear she reached down and yanked open the only drawer. A few bottles rolled around, most of them yellowed with age and barely used. With a practiced hand, she skipped past them for the green bottle. Over half empty, the edges worn down from use, she cracked it open and dropped three of the pills on her tongue and swallowed.

Variel gave it a minute before she tried sitting up again. Dry cement filled her mouth and ogre’s danced inside her skull but the nausea remained at bay. Carefully, she dropped the arm and let light into her eyes. Fluorescent lighting from a half broken fixture hammered nails into her brain, but she slid the bottle back with its brethren and got up. It would be impolitic for the captain to show up late to her own damn meeting.

“WEST?” she called out, the long wee clogging in her cement throat.

“If you wish to make a request, you must put in a proper chit,” chirped the console beside her bed.

Variel clenched her fist about to argue with the computer, but caught her head instead, “Fine, you want to be that way, I don’t give a shit.” Shuffling off her bed, she gathered up her clothes, tossed about her cabin like they were shed after an acid attack. She flipped them over a few times to make certain they weren’t. Green could do strange things to anatomy at times.

Tossing them into the pile of used brown shirts and pants, she yanked much the same out of her micro-closet. The vacuum popped in place, sucking the other clothes back into their tiny hell. The Captain of the Elation-Cru paused for a moment before the only mirrored bit of surface in her cabin and laughed at the pathetic figure. Presentable was impossible. Even warmed over death might be a reach. Giving up on that traitorous mirror, she left her cabin.

Sliding down the ladder, Variel landed on the real deck of her ship and heard a voice booming through the partially closed bridge door. Regulations stated it should always be shut tight in the event of sudden decompression. She abandoned the regs three days after hiring her pilot.

Quietly shoving the door aside she paused to eavesdrop as her dwarf spun about in his chair watching three screens at once.

“Nah, it wasn’t me. I swear. I don’t know why she keeps telling you these crazy things!” Orn pleaded to one before pausing the record and hitting send. He turned to another and started up what looked like a news program.

“…Reports of unexplained phenomena when a SkyTalk tech-“

He shut that off as the third console beeped and a young dwarven girl spoke up. Cotton candy pink coated her dark mouth and she shouted across the line, “You’re not supposed to send me anymore of those, Unkie.”

“Who says?” Orn answered glancing back at the first screen to make certain it was still paused.

The dwarven girl placed a hand on her hip and stuck out her lip, “You know daddy doesn’t want us playing with those. He says it’s not ladylike to explode things.”

“‘Not ladylike…’ our family’s been in explosions for over ten generations. It’s a proud Kuron tradition to find things and blow them up. Sh-ugar. Let me guess, Letu’s trying to dig down again. He always had aspirations beyond his reach. If he tries to marry you off to some rich snot from one of the deeper mines you’d tell me, right?”

“Unkie!” the girl squealed at the joke, waving her hands at the screen, “you’re being impossible.”

Orn nodded his head, “Probably. All right, I promise I won’t send you anymore nitro blasts…hidden inside candy.”

“You could put it in clothes!” the girl squeaked up. “He never checks those.”

Orn smiled, “I’ll do my best. What do little ladies wear? Big old sweaters covered in kobolds?”

The girl stuck her tongue out at the screen. Orn laughed at his own joke and, in twisting his head, caught sight of his boss. “Dess, I’ve got to go. Space stuff.”

She whined but nodded her head, “All right, I guess.”

He snorted and in a sing song voice said, “Good by-ye.”

“Bye!” the girl shouted and froze on screen. Orn leaned back from his personal calls and swung his chair around to face Variel.

“Busy?” she asked.

“Family call.”

“Ah.” Family calls were less a quick pop song and more a symphony for dwarves. With a brood that literally filled a city, keeping in touch required planning that made generals envious.

“You look like shit,” Orn said, tipping his head. “No, worse than shit. You look like shit after it’s been run through the recycler then shat back out.”

“Thanks,” Variel coughed out, waving her hand.

“What in the volcano’s anus did you drink?”

“Green.”

Orn whistled through his teeth, already unrolling what was probably not his first candy of the day. “That’s nasty for everyone.”

“I didn’t come here for a lecture,” Variel muttered, well aware that she shouldn’t touch a drop of that damn stuff. “I came for an update on nav.”

“Funny,” Orn said, rolling the candy in his cheeks, “I was about to ask you the same.”

“What are you talking about? You were in charge of the wyrmpinch.”

“I thought so too, ’til I woke up and checked the logs.”

“Orn, my head’s about to crack and birth a dragon. Whatever shit you’re pulling…”

“Look for yerself,” he said sliding away from the ancient nav panel.

It creaked so bad, some days Variel was surprised paper didn’t spit out of it. Data points, star charts, location numbers that only fuzzed her brain more scrolled under her fingers until one big purple location flashed.

“You already took us through a wyrm?!” she accused, pointing at the dwarf.

But he only deflected her finger and arched his fuzzy eyebrow, “Look again, Cap. That ain’t my signature.”

Variel pinched her eyes shut deep and opened them again to focus. Running beside the wyrm pinch request was her number and the name Veral! “Shit.”

“Tha’s what I was thinking. Musta been some really good stuff,” Orn - the teetotaler- dropped another candy into his mouth.

“No, when that happens it’s the really bad stuff. Where are we?”

“You order a wyrm pinch and don’t even know where we are? That is some mighty fine captaining there!” Orn grinned wide, enjoying every moment of watching her squirm. She squared her shoulders, aware of how bad this would look.

Waving her hand she admitted, “Shit happens.”

Orn laughed, “Especially when you drink from the emerald wastes.”

“Are you going to tell me where we are, or do I have to sober enough to look through the log books myself?” Variel stuck her hand on her hip, unknowingly mimicking his niece.

“Why don’t you go ask your co-pilot.”

Variel’s brow furrowed, “My what?”

“Oh shit, you don’t remember? Oh gods, this just got so much better.” He jumped up and down in his chair, the hydraulics squealing from the excitement and flapped his arms.

“For the fuck’s sake, Orn. I’m in a stabbing mood right now and you’re the only one present.”

The threat sailed over his head — which happens often for dwarves — and he smiled like a sphinx, “Guessing you haven’t been to the galley yet.”

“No, why…” Fuzzy memories climbed up through her gridlocked brain and a small groan gurgled at the back of her throat.

“Shit.”

Orn giggled like a school girl with explosives.

 

* * *

 

Variel paused at the galley door and caught the eye of her engineer stirring a coffee pot. Ferra’s ice cold stare rolled back down to the pile of brown hair sitting at the table. There was probably a body attached to it. Variel wasn’t the type to discover a new species of sentient keratin and immediately take it to bed.

What was his damn name?

“Have you worked here long?” the brown hair spoke to Ferra. The elf snorted and fished out one of her coffee mugs. Slowly, without offering any to the humans, she poured out her stash.

“I…see,” the man wasn’t easily perturbed, his voice airy.

Ferra buried her face behind her mug but took the chance to shoot another pink tinged “what the hell is this?” look at Variel. Sighing, the captain rubbed the back of her neck and stepped into the galley.

The noise twisted around the brown hair’s head and a cheeky grin tugged a few more images out of Variel’s shattered memory core. “Good morning,” he chirped and patted the chair beside him.

Variel gulped at the overly-familiar move and froze, uncertain how to proceed. “Yeah…morning?”

“I was speaking with your elven friend here,” he continued. Ferra snorted again, shaking her head. Two years working together and Variel knew no one talked to Ferra until after at least three cups of coffee.

“Oh,” Variel grunted as she slid away from the table towards the engineer. Ferra folded her hands around her brew, but let the boss grab a mug. She did technically buy it.

“And I found a breakfast ration,” he continued to talk, gesturing to the mostly empty bowl of oatmeal.

“Okay.”

“Captain!” Orn’s voice boomed from the bridge portal catching everyone’s attention. “Won’t you introduce us to your friend here?”

She glared murder at him, but Orn waved away a bit of blood loss and yanked out a seat beside the stranger. Scurrying up the chair, the dwarf placed his boots on the never clean table and leaned back.

Variel cleared her throat and said, “This is Orn, he’s the pilot and a right pain in the ass.”

“Yup!” Orn answered back, grinning wide. She was going to kill him ten different ways, necromance him back to life, and kill him a dozen more.

“And apparently you already met Ferra.”

The five foot elf snorted again and rolled her voluminous eyes. Orn spoke for her, “She’s my wife. So don’t be thinking anything funny or I’ll have to have her kill you.”

The stranger nodded slowly at Orn’s convoluted threat, “Very …got it?”

“And Cap’n, who’s this—” Orn eyed up the man trying to pass off his rakish smile as charm, “acceptable human?”

Six eyes and two curious grins landed upon her. Years of training kept Variel from visibly squirming but attempts to dredge up a memory were replaced by a vision of her bashing Orn’s head in with a—

“Bane!” she shouted aloud, causing all three people to jump, “Drake Bane.” Variel almost pumped her fist like she got the last question on an oral exam right.

Orn scowled at her ruining his fun, but the name pulled Ferra out of her coffee funk. She sputtered and asked, “Drake Bane? Really?”

“Yes…” the no longer fully stranger glanced towards the elf who didn’t seem such a pushover now.

“Drake, as in the Crest ships? Bane of a Drake? What, you’re an elongated MGC pump? A faulty wiring in the injection nacelle? Some idiotic engineer’s idea to stuff weapons fire right atop the pinch bubble creating an aftershock if you boot the system before 3 minutes?”

“I…uh,” Drake stuttered at the massive tech dump across him. “That’s just my name.”

“Whatever you say, Faulty O-Ring,” Ferra tossed her mug to the counter, wiped the side of her mouth, and shoved past Variel. Reaching into her leather apron, she pulled out a wrench, “I’m off to fix a Drake Bane.” Without ceremony she vanished out the door towards her domain.

“What an interesting woman,” Drake said. Variel spotted the pained look in his face as he subconsciously clenched his thighs together. Ferra did that to people.

“Shit,” Orn muttered, “you should see her when she’s mad.”

Variel interrupted before the two became best friends and she had to put her one night mistake on salary, “Mr. Bane.”

“Drake’s fine.”

“Mr. Bane, we seem to no longer be orbiting the space station.”

“Oh? Have we already arrived?” he asked, glancing around the dilapidated kitchen as if he wanted to be anywhere else.

“Arrived where?” Variel asked.

“Raptor,” he shouted, but only got blank stares, “you know, the traveling museum of the dwarves.”

Orn whistled at the mention of his people, “That means it’s expensive.”

Drake turned to Variel, his clear eyes misting on command, “We spoke of visiting it. You seemed quite interested in a few of the exhibits last night.” Then he reached over the table to grab her hand.

She snaked away and crossed her arms. “Nice try. A for effort and all, but…”

The galley doors to the passenger side opened and a slender red nose poked into the kitchen. It sniffed the air filled with scents of burnt coffee and parboiled oatmeal. “Love, breakfast is ready,” it called behind itself.

A pair of goblins slid into the kitchen, both dressed in similar pale blue robes. They even parted their hair in the same knot down the side and wore a string of gems in the same ear. The only real difference between the two men was their skin tone.

One was a soft desert red, his skin pocked with divots to mimic shifting sands, while the other was a pale blue, blotched in greys to hide amongst river rocks. It was rare for goblins from different biospheres to marry.

“Oh,” the blue one said as he stepped behind his husband, “we do not dine alone.”

“No dear, even the Captain is here!”

Variel’s pinched public relations smile fell into place, “Messieurs Aloysius, good morning.”

Albanus, the desert goblin, gestured to the human smiling at his good fortune, “We have a new guest traveling with us? How exciting!”

Drake stepped in before Variel could correct him, “I am afraid I am not an official passenger.”

“No?” Koysi asked, turning his bulbous head in confusion at the captain.

Variel’s smiled twitched as she weighed her options before the very polite and very conservative passengers. The same ones that helped them to afford oatmeal in the first place. “We are old friends,” she lied, tipping her head to Drake.

“Ah,” Albanus answered, clapping his paper thin hands, “delightful! How small the galaxy is you should become reacquainted in our space.”

“It is a true wonder,” Drake said, getting a flash of Variel’s teeth.

Koysi smiled at the newcomer and picked a box of cereal out of the guarded passenger drawer. While fishing out two bowls, he asked, “How did you two meet?”

“Probably while the Captain was on top of him.”

“Orn!”

“What?” He shouted before muttering not enough below his breath, “you expect me to believe you’re a bottom?”

Variel waved her fist at him but unclenched it and knotted through her hair at the confused stare from the goblins.

“I do not understand, how are you acquainted?”

“Bunk beds! We met at a bunk bed making camp, and I made the top bunk while he made the bottom!”

The goblins nodded at Variel’s outburst as if it was all human to them. Orn leaned over and whispered, “Nice save.”

“I will kill you when this is over,” she added back.

“It was worth it.”

Messieurs Aloysius were too engrossed in their breakfast options of mysterious grain flakes with or without sugar to catch the captain trying to mentally choke the pilot. The red one turned from the discussion to ask, “Mr. Lidoffad?”

“Yes?” Orn squeaked, finally aware of the hissing volcano he walked across.

“What delights of the universe will we be seeing today?”

Orn glanced at Variel and shrugged. They’d been able to bullshit the Mob Station as a “slice of rustic space life” and picking up the cargo as “a chance to really explore the manufacturing side of living.” He was out of bovine crap.

It was Drake who jumped in again, “We’re beside a dwarven antiquities museum.”

“Delightful!” Koysi responded, “Oh, perhaps they will have an exhibit on the dark period in dwarven history.”

“He’s a bit of a nut about ancient dwarves.”

“You don’t say,” Orn deadpanned, unaware his people had a dark period outside of the time someone forgot to change a light bulb.

“We will be stopping for a few hours, I hope,” Albanus asked Variel. She felt the purse strings zipping shut in his tone.  
Trying to nod but finding her head still shaking in a no, she answered, “Yes.”

After pulling out a chair for his husband, Albanus picked up both bowls and sat down. Either the tension pouring off the captain into the new guest passed over his head, or neither goblin cared as she eyed Drake down.

He smiled at the pair chattering about dwarven history shit, ignoring her. “I’m excited about it as well. There is an exhibit on the efrete people I must see.”

“Oh? The efrete! So mysterious how they all vanished, leaving behind such beautiful ruins,” Koysi said, his spoon never making it to his mouth.

“They did?” Orn asked Variel. She shrugged.

“Are you a bit of a history curioso as well?” Albanus picked up the conversation string, letting his husband finally get in some food.

“I am an archaeologist specializing in lost civilizations,” Drake said causing Variel to snort. With the sweetest smile he turned to her and oozed, “Right, bunk mate?”

Through gritted teeth Variel nodded, her nose furrowed as if he stunk of curdled milk, “Right.”

“And,” Drake continued, “the captain already agreed to accompany me to the exhibit.”


	4. Chapter 4

Drake smoothed down the cuffs on his jacket and thought that could have gone worse. Backed into a corner of her own making, the captain folded grumbling visceral detailed things under her breath. He hadn’t expected her to wake up before he got onto Raptor, nicked the damn thing, and snuck back aboard. That much green should have knocked down a full grown ogre or 16 gnomes. The woman must have a cyborg liver.

After storming back to her bridge, dragging the dwarf with, Drake called out, “Don’t forget to tell us when we’ll be docking, dear.”

He swore he heard a blood vessel pop, but she grunted out a, “Fine” as she slammed the door shut. His personal safety net both nodded their gargantuan heads at the good news. If it weren’t for the fusspot goblins he knew he’d have been dumped on an asteroid with just enough oxygen to hope for a never coming rescue. It wasn’t like what he did was entirely illegal. She did invite him in…Drake paused in his thoughts, a bit terrified of the comparison he drew to a vampire.

No mind, he wasn’t doing it to hurt anyone, just to save his skin…and blood. Can’t forget the blood. Oless sure as shit won’t. The goblins babbled on together, their sentences overlapping as if they already told each other the same story a thousand times but needed some noise to keep going. So that’s what waited people at the end of the aisle? Drake was happy to have bypassed the whole thing.

He opened his PALM, booting up the holographic screen but an error bar flashed. “Shit, I thought I was paid up,” he muttered under his breath. Going through a back alley service provider seemed a brilliant choice in case any less than pleased clients went looking for you, right until that kraken knew he got you by the balls and went for the squeeze.  
Leaving his dirty bowl on the table, he walked towards a computer screen above the sink. An image of a rising dawn projected off it, giving an air of calm to the cramped kitchen. Drake pushed on the button, expecting a soothing and sultry voice to inquire about his needs.

“Whatcha want, ham flesh?” an androgynous and craggy voice erupted from the speakers. A pair of wheels rolled across the screen blotting out the sun, while a zapping loose wire flapped around where a mouth would be.

Drake reared back from the monstrosity. Throughout the rest of proper civilization VIs were programmed to match a person’s preferred mental image. His was a buxom redhead with nearly elf green eyes. She was the only stable woman in his life and she was nothing more than a bit of nameless code. A more reflective man would probably find something sad in that.

“What are you?” he asked the pathetic attempt at modern art.

“The computer, moron. What are you?”

Drake narrowed his eyes, “Okay, computer, you are required to do a task for me.”

“Hm, hamflesh, I’m thinking no,” this computer mocked back. She’d never be so obstinate. Oh, occasionally she’d claim she couldn’t find a bit of data but Drake knew she was just playing hard to get. If he prodded the right buttons he’d get what he needed out of her.

“You are a machine, I am a sentient being. You must do as I command,” Drake ordered back.

A laugh echoed through the crackling speakers, “You are a walking bag of water. I could kill you with a single spark of my body. I can do whatever I want.”

“I see, you’re a rogue AI.”

The wheel eyes bent in half and a scanning bar zipped across the screen. “I’m not red.”

“Rogue not…Only one thing to do with rogue AIs intent on human destruction. I have to report you to the Center for Computer Destruction,” Drake said raising his hand as if he could get any service.

“I’d like to see you try without a head,” the computer threatened.

It might have been Drake’s imagination but he could have sworn the toaster just jumped closer to him. Still he continued to boot through the wyrmpinch mode on his PALM and spoke, “Hello, Center for Computer Destruction…This is Drake Bane and I need to—”

Water burst from the sink, dousing his blue tunic. The wet spot stank of sulfur and even through the dark color he spotted see the tell tale signs of a yellow stain from the ancient filters. “You fucking-!” he began when the door opened.

“We docked with the museum station,” the captain said, her hair combed into a presentable and military shape. “They’ll be sending an escort pod soon…” her voice faded as she spotted Drake standing beside the sink trying to hide the widening water stain across his chest.

“What the sh-ugar are you doing?” she asked the pair of them.

“He started it!” the computer and Drake shouted simultaneously.

“Oh for fu-n’s sake. WEST, turn off the water before you waste it all. And you,” she stepped closer to Drake and he got a whiff of his own cologne off her. His eyes shifted to the goblin pair discussing bathroom prep before the shuttle. She followed him and with a big grin responded, “Dry yourself off as best you can before the tour. We wouldn’t want it to wait.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head, “we wouldn’t.”

The shuttle bay was even more of a disappointment than he thought possible. While a decent size, the ship apparently couldn’t afford one and filled the empty space with half unpacked boxes. Most of the lights didn’t work. The captain slammed the controls around, calling out orders to whatever pimply teenager pushed a few buttons on the other end. Both goblins watched on in awe. Drake wondered if he had goblin aging all wrong and they were actually giant newborns gawping at ever piddly little thing. No one who got that excited over docking procedures wasn’t hiding some ulterior motive, or serious brain damage.

“Opening shuttle bay doors,” she said to the air.

Drake could swore he heard a, “Yeah, whatever,” echo across the line - the kid unaware she had to put on a show. She certainly gave it her all, pushing unimportant buttons, waving her hands, and vibrating the descending so they looked like a magic act.

The disembarkation suite was designed to at best hold five people with one broken distraction screen for children or rich parents you could confuse for children. But the goblins crowded around the glass, their noses keeping them from pressing their faces fully against it. Drake leaned against the back wall, smirking. He only broke from his cool lean once when a beady eye flashed from the broken screen. But when he looked again, it was as dead as before. He needed to get back his damn ship soon.

“Pod is landing. Sealing doors to re-pressurize,” the captain said. In reality, the computer could handle this — assuming it wasn’t really an AI trying to kill them all. Drake glanced down at the tea stain across half his chest and nodded his head. Okay, maybe she had good reason for doing it all herself.

“Bay is pressurized,” she said, stepping away from the controls. Half the lights bothered to rise in the bay below.

“Gentlemen,” she said to the goblins. One of them squealed. Despite the color coding, Drake couldn’t tell them apart. It didn’t really matter, they were practically one brain sharing two bodies at this point.

The red one grabbed the blue’s hand and pulled him out the door down the ramp. Drake felt the captain’s icy glare and he offered his arm to her. That ugly scar sharpened in the glinting emergency light and not for the first time he wondered if she got that not from surviving a fight but starting one.

Then the goblin called out, “Are you joining us on this journey or will you wait for another?”

“Well, captain?” Drake asked, still holding out his arm. “Shall we go now, or wait another.”

She titled her head at the title, a shrewd look crossing her eyes, but he knew she wanted him gone as bad as he wanted out.

Gritting her teeth she shoved past him and called to the goblins, “I’m coming.”

“You said that a lot last night,” Drake cooed. A sharp elbow bit deep into his water stain. Stumbling back, he struggled for breath.

“What was that?” she called sweetly, waving at the goblins still struggling to find the door.

“Oh nothing,” Drake gasped, massaging his midsection. A whole lot of calculations altered in his mind. Most of the equations that ended in a giggle or fuck with normal women now flashed a bright red warning: death or dismemberment, do not attempt.

The captain helped the goblins into the pod, hatching open the door and guiding them into the harnesses. She held open the door, glaring back as Drake sauntered over. He still massaged his tender and wet stomach when those flint eyes snapped behind him.

“What are you doing?” she shouted across the shuttlebay.

Drake pointed at himself, but that sing song voice of the dwarf echoed through. “We’re coming too!”

“We?” she asked, folding her arms. Sure enough Orn and that hot little blonde elf appeared. She’d tossed that unflattering apron for a frilly pink blouse that would have been scandalous on a human. Such a pity how close mother nature got with elves: long limbed, big eyed, more limber than a gymnast, but she forgot to add the breasts. A true waste.

A cold stare prickled across Drake’s heart and he caught a set of pink eyes boring deep into his skull with such cold calculations he reached to cover his eyes. Pausing his hands before he made a total fool of himself, he caught another eye roll from the elf as she followed the dwarf.

“Funny thing,” Orn said, huffing beside the captain, “turns out this museum on top of the dead but not dead species shit also does ancient technology. Guess who goes complete gnoll shit for that?” he said gesturing towards his wife. She shrugged a shoulder as if it were a compliment.

“If you’re here then who’s watching the ship?”

“I’m sure batshit can keep it from crashing for a few hours,” the dwarf said.

“Orn, WEST can barely run a self diagnostic.”

“Yeah, that may be why it’s screwier than a bolt. Don’t give me that look. You don’t want to come between Fer and old tech. Trust me. Where do you think we honeymooned?”

“Besides,” the elf cut in, “your djinn can watch the ship.”

Drake twisted his head around, as if the mentioned missing crew member would suddenly appear with its name called. He’d heard something about the djinn but it was hard enough remembering the difference between a banshee and a siren or a centaur from a satyr. And those guys gave him work. Whatever a djinn was couldn’t be that important.

The captain sighed, but capitulated to a growing bad day, “Great, fine, get on in.” She waved them on and the dwarf and elf climbed over her, strapping in. Finally, she dropped her hand and gestured at Drake. “Well…”

He smiled, and bowed softly, “I was only waiting for you to ask.”

Still chuckling at his joke, he climbed past her and picked up the second to last harness. She may be more bark than bite, but he still kept his innards far from her elbows. Glancing around the shuttlebay once more, she stepped into the pod and pressed upon the panel. The door sealed up behind her, white light rising to meet the darkness.

Glaring at Drake, she slipped on her harness and bolted it quickly. He unraveled his only to find it partially knotted. A dread landed in his stomach. With only part an arm inside, he watched a cruel smirk rise across her lips and she jammed onto the release catch. The pod rose into the air and zipped into space, sending Drake Bane careening into the wall.


	5. Chapter 5

Soft light and softer voices washed across Drake as he exited the pod, checking for a broken nose. A small bot greeted him, the screen for its face flickering through the exhibits on display and all the wonderful opportunities at Raptor. The voice undulated from new age zen to ecstatic school girl.

While the goblins fussed about each other, Orn and the elf ran off together; the lady dragging him in her focused wake. Drake turned back to find the captain standing beside the pod checking her PALM and glancing up at the goblins. A knot formed in Drake’s gullet and he knew that stance. She was waiting until the old fashioned married couple vanished into the crowd so she could zip back to the ship and abandon him.

Dropping his hands off his bruised but not broken nose, Drake slipped an arm around her distracted waist. Before she could swing around to smack him, he shouted out loudly, “Well, dear, what should we see first?!”

A dozen eyes swiveled towards the rare humans. She shirked from the curious stares but glared at him from the periphery.

“You seem to have a plan in mind, why don’t you follow it?”

“But I wouldn’t want to interrupt any of yours,” he said cheerily, waving at the throngs of dwarves poking at the holographic images of the history they were about to see.

“Failed on that already,” she muttered under her breath, but dropped her hand and stepped away from the pod. The door sealed up and it toddled back to the hanger.

Drake released his light grip on her, and she stepped sideways away from him. A tinge of incredulity crawled up his gut — she’s damn lucky to spend any time with a man like him — but he shook it away. Stepping into line, he waved the captain on. “Come on, chum. No time like the present.”

She rolled her eyes like a petulant teenager, but obeyed standing far behind him and tapping her boot. The arrhythmic cadence broke across his teeth but mercifully the line moved quickly. Dwarven engineering at its finest. Be it mechanical, biomedical, or social, the dwarves knew what button to push and which lever to yank to get someone to drop down to the floor and drool like a dog. And he was about to steal from them.

Dropping the thought, Drake approached the ticket counter. A cyborg glanced up at him. Most of her face was still dwarven but pockets of the robotic network peeked out from underneath. Her skull glowed an iridescent opal, the diode thingies flaring as the jaw unhinged and she spoke, “What can I do for you today?”

The voice was one of a dozen options you could pick for a VI, as average as you got. But the eyes still glittered with that spark of life no golem could ever achieve. Drake leaned into the window and smiled.

“I need two tickets into your Efrete exhibit.”

Her eyes blinked once and finished the calculations, “That will be two dancing mermaids, please.”

“Ah,” Drake said, aware that at best all he had was a picture of a rock to his name, “I was wondering if you could be of some assistance, actually.”

“Sir?”

“See, I’m a member of a Lord’s court and I was sent ahead to evaluate the defenses before he visits. He wishes to donate a grand sum to the excavation of the…” Drake glanced around at the exhibit displays, “merman breeding facility, but wishes to do it in person. You know how Lords are.” Drake waved his hands dismissively about as if his Lord was an errant poodle whizzing on the rug.

“That is exciting news, Sir,” the ticket cyborg said.

Drake patted his pockets theatrically, “But I was attacked by vandals on the way here. They made off with my entire purse.”

“I do not understand. Hold out your PALM for payment.”

“Lord Fraudy is a peculiar man and doesn’t believe in the PALM service. Oh, I know, I’ve tried to convince him we need to catch up with this age but he’s set in his ways.”

“I do not understand. What do you need?”

Now Drake cranked up his charm to eleven, batting those baby blues and crooking up his smile. “I thought, that you could do me a solid and let me and…” he glanced back at the captain still engrossed in her PALM, “my partner run in. For free.”

“Sir, it isn’t our policy—”

“It would only be to check the security systems, make sure no ruffians will descend upon Lord Farty…Fraudy. He will be donating a very very generous endowment, perhaps enough to encourage a raise for any museum employees.”

“We cannot let anyone—”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” the captain shouted behind him. She shouldered Drake aside and pointed at the cyborg, “Where’s the scanner?”

The girl held out the PALM analyzer and the captain shoved her hand under it. Two bracelets printed out behind the cyborg and she passed both to the woman. “Thank you for your patronage. Enjoy the Museum,” the cyborg repeated the mantra before adding, “We look forward to a visit from your Lord Fraudy.”

After notching on her own bracelet, the captain tossed the second at Drake. He clasped the squishy plastic ends together and felt a small buzz across his skin. A blue light glowed from the ticket bracelet telling him it was safe to cross the line.  
He looked up from his wrist to catch the sarcastic brown glare of the woman treating him. “‘Lord Fraudy?’” was all she asked.

Drake shrugged and stepped away from the counter. “You didn’t have to do that,” he insisted as if he had all the mermaid vids in the world.

“If I didn’t want to die in a museum’s antechamber, yeah I did.”

“I had it under control,” he said glancing around the museum. There were five doors around the complex, each black as night. There were no sneak peeks at Raptor. A sign hung above them but it was only in dwarven. He’d need his PALM to translate the things.

“Well!” her grating voice interrupted his thoughts, “where now ol’ shit stirrer of the Lord Fraudy. I’m guessing that’s Narwhal Crest?”

Drake closed his hand, and took a very uneducated guess. Pointing at one of the doors, he smiled, “That one. And it’s Griffin, in fact. The Fraudys are a proud people.”

“They need better help,” she muttered, letting him take the lead.

His bracelet flared as he passed into the door’s threshold. A beep followed and a bored security guard nodded her head. This dwarf was propped up on a stool, swinging her legs around and picking at the brass buttons along her uniform. Drake smiled at her and noted the holster on her side. Armed security guards in a museum. What was this galaxy coming to?

His ticket off the station waved her hand before the door and shielded her eyes before stepping into the dark. Lights illuminated the displays tucked safely behind thick glass. Force fields were high tech but a waste of energy when a couple inches of glass would do just as well. You also didn’t have to worry about some idiot kid claiming he could reverse the polarity on his hand proceed to burn the flesh off.

“Well, archeologist,” she smirked, “what must we simply see?”

“Uh…” he glanced around at the cases filled with pulsing rocks and gems. Vibrant greens, neon blues, and a disturbingly blood red crimson cast against the floor, but nothing looked like a relic. Though with dwarves, grandma’s favorite geode might count as one.

“Excuse me, Ma’am,” Drake said to the security guard. “Can you tell me where the Efrete exhibit is?”

The guard puffed up her hair and cast him a look that said she wasn’t paid enough to answer questions. “You have to get through the recovered treasures from the wreck of the Dragon, the mysteries of the Shovan, and Sand Land.”

“Which of those is this?” Drake asked, pointing to the geode.

“Fun with Rocks, those are all past that.”

“Vanheedish!” Drake cursed and rubbed his hands down his cheeks, “What if we head back out through that door and go in the Efrete one?”

“I’m sorry, Sir. I can’t let you do that. Once you enter the museum you must either fully go through or leave.” Before he could argue why she tacked on, “Security reasons.”

“You know what you’re doing, eh?” the captain asked, folding her arms across a pair of breasts that were not worth this headache.

“We’ll just go through the museum,” Drake resigned himself to his fate. Stepping past both nagging women he turned right at the blood red crystal then paused and glanced back. “The wreck’s this way?”

“To your left,” the security guard muttered, back to flipping through her PALM.

“Right,” Drake nodded.

“LEFT, SIR!” The captain didn’t hide her snicker as she waved at the security guard and followed him.

Drake’s half hearted mood crashed into itself. He didn’t bother staring at the many wonders of rock on display, only dodged around patrons ooing and ahhing over chunks of dirt and jumped over a few kids picking at the ground. After almost kicking a third one he realized the floor was made out of removable gems for children to take home as souvenirs.

Two more lefts and the rocks faded away to a ship facade. It wasn’t a true space ship, they were trying to be cute, but it wasn’t an old human sailing ship either. The dwarves used a weird combination of sails, steam, and wheels to propel ships down their tunnels. They were shaped more like a snake, each segment a barrel to accommodate climbing and lowering into deeper tunnels. And this giant plastic one had children crawling all over it.

Glancing to his side, Drake spotted two more security guards watching over the brats leaving their own mark on history. He caught the woman exiting rock land, a small green gem in her hand. Drake expected her to wander off once she got the chance. It might put a crimp in his return plans, but at this point he’d welcome losing her even if it meant having to steal a ship from someone else.

But she seemed to sense the change in the air, and kept closer to him. As they dodged through the very interesting tech recovered from a long lost barrel at the bottom of a mine shaft, she struck up a conversation.

“An archeologist of what?”

“Excuse me?” Drake was trying to track a pair of gnomes rolling an electrical cable across the floor and wasn’t listening.

“You’re an archeologist of what?”

“Efrete,” he lied easily. You want to stay in this business you get good at remembering your half assed cover stories.  
But she wasn’t buying it, “Oh, right, the efrete. So, you must know the big secret then.”

“Big secret?” Drake stopped before a cul-de-sac of dwarves mummified in grog drinking poses and turned right.

“Of course, it’s all anyone knows about the efrete. Well, aside from being made out of fire.”

“Yeah, I knew that, the fire bit.” Drake regretted not bothering to do a damn second of research before careening into his ride’s bed. He also never got this level of interrogation before. Most women were happy just to see him.

She wouldn’t give up, “All right, then. How’d it happen?”

“How’d what happen?”

“What killed off the efrete?”

Drake skittered to a halt, his feet crunching across what he hoped were fake ancient dwarven bones and not that he accidentally walked into a display. The efrete…who knew anything about a dead species? Who cared? There were enough living ones to cause problems already, the dead weren’t going to help. But he felt that piercing glare dicing up his soul and knew he needed an answer.

“There are many varying theories but the most popular is that all efrete were wiped out in a large meteor crash on their home planet some 75 million years ago.” He beamed towards the end, giving all his weight to the words.

She nodded solemnly, about to buy it, then doubled over silently giggling. “That was some damn good bullshit, I’ll give you. Though it was dragons the meteor killed. Every kid who’s ever gotten in an argument on a playground knows that.”

“Meteor strikes are common across the galaxy. How are you so certain that they did not wipe out the efrete?”

“First of all, that tech they’re digging up is maybe 300 years old. Second, now here’s where ya got tripped up, the efrete aren’t actually extinct.”

 _Shit! Shit! Shit!_ Drake’s mouth plummeted at getting outplayed by this low-rent smuggler. She patted him on the shoulder like a child that just came in last at a jousting tourney. “The real question, Mr. Not-An-Archeologist, probably not Drake Bane either, is what you actually are.”

“It’s complicated,” he said glancing at the massive tour group of centaurs skittering through the halls led by a security guard. Without any ceremony he resumed his pacing out of the hall and into Sand Land. His foot sunk six inches into the red and black dust, almost causing Drake to flip over. He pinwheeled his arms and caught himself, but it curbed his escape attempt from the tour group and the captain.

She watched him while leaning beside the entrance carved like a pair of kobolds giving each other piggyback rides. “That may be the first true thing you’ve said since we met,” she said.

“And what about you?” Out of options he decided to try the old mirror method. I know what you are, but what am I?

“What of me?” she asked, a shield falling across her face. He got a few hackles up with that blow.

“You got a pair of goblins on their golden anniversary as passengers while running something smuggled to Mob Station. They haven’t done weapons in a few months so I’m guessing contraband. Probably one of the toxic food stuffs that ain’t supposed to leave home worlds. Maybe elven.”

More of his shots hit than missed as her glower amped up. For the first time since she stumbled into the kitchen still in just fucked hair he felt he had the upper hand. Yanking his foot out of the sand, he slid towards the pathway and walked around the massive litter box. But she wasn’t about to let that challenge go unanswered. No, he knew she’d be trailing behind.

“You can’t prove anything,” she tried. The soft ball threw him off guard. From the clench in her jaw he expected threats. Maybe he’d work his magic last night after all.

“Don’t need to. Carting around passengers without a license is good enough to bring the corps down on you.”

She caught up to him and loomed closer. He forgot how close they were in height. With a snarl she said, “You’re a fucking stowaway, we both know it.”

But he laughed, pushing her face away with his hand. “Not me, our goblin friends.”

That didn’t have the reaction he expected. Instead of stomping her feet, throwing up her hands, or agreeing to do his bidding so he didn’t rat her out, she snorted once, then raised an eyebrow.

“You do…you don’t know what ship you even snuck on to, do you?”

“Of course I do.”

She twisted her lips and folded those arms again, “Okay, what class is it.”

“I’m not a mechanic.”

“What make, model, color?”

“They’re all irrelevant.”

A cruel grin slithered across her face and she turned on him, “What’s the name?”

“I…uh,” Drake ran through every damn manifest in his head but he kept circling back around to his ship still trapped in that fucking Oless’ greedy claws.

“You don’t even know the name of the ship you’re on? Bloody genius move that,” she cracked shifting away.

“It’s the ship that you own and illegally move passengers on,” he fired wildly, but it only puttered uselessly to the sand.

“Genius, it’s a cruise ship. It’s legally classed for just that.”

Color drained from Drake’s face as the only rug he had left to stand on was yanked out. He shook his head, now running away from the sand and her, but she chased after sadly in better shape. It’s not like she knows what I’m planning on doing. Or could even stop me if she did. Drake reassured himself a few times, trying to psyche himself up.

Behind him he heard her grating voice mulling over his words, “‘a ship you own’…Oh, you son of a lich.”

His space trained lungs gave out and he collapsed onto a drinking fountain, straining to get air in. A flush pocked his face, bursting a few capillaries from the unexpected excitement. I swear, I’ll get a fucking treadmill once this is over. He made that promise every time he had to do little more than walk a mile.

But she didn’t even sound winded as she stopped behind him, that boot tip banging into the no longer sandy floor again. Drake gasped at his shoes once more before turning to face her. A different flush filled her face, rage burning hotter than an efrete. “What?” He finally asked.

“You don’t know my fucking name.”

“I…gods!” he doubled back over, sucking in more air and to cover for himself.

“You grab anyone off the street…”

“Only women, preferably.”

“Ply them with alcohol…”

“You looked pretty toasted before I even wandered by.”

“And sneak onto their ship without learning either’s name!”

He finally rose to face her and her rage had subsided into something else. It could be considered pity if she wasn’t also shaking her head in disgust.

“Whatever you are, you’re fucking terrible at it.”

“Fine, fine, you caught me. I’m a cad. A low life. A…bad person with a limited vocabulary!” Drake shouted, pacing about as if he wanted everyone else to join in his madness. “Since it’s so important, why don’t you tell me your name?”  
She shifted back on her heels, and pierced into his eyes. Subconsciously, he tried to tug unruly scraps of brown hair down to cover them. “No.”

“What do you mean no? Why the fuck not? It’s just a name.”

“Because you want it all of a sudden,” she said, the eyes now weighing him like a piece of fish at the market.

“Fucking great. That’s just perfect. So glad we had this real important chat then. Anything else you’re mad I don’t know about you? Your birthday? Your pet’s name? Your cup size?”

She rolled her eyes and turned as if to walk away from the whole mess when that rambunctious pilot and his ice queen wife appeared from out of the bathroom.

“Captain!” the dwarf shouted. Big help there, Drake thought. But he knew eventually one of them would let slip her name.  
A concoction of fabrics sewed into pockets stuffed with fliers perched upon the dwarf’s head. It tipped haphazardly as if the hat would slip off at any second, but the massive buckle on the back promoting Raptor balanced it out.

“Orn,” the nameless captain said, glancing down at him. She looked as if she wanted to ask about the hat but shook her head, “How’s it been?”

“We saw a very impressive display of doodads and whatchamacalits in pretty colors.”

“Whatchamacalits?” she asked, glancing towards the elf.

“This is why you don’t ask him to fix the ship,” she answered, shrugging a shoulder.

“Noted,” the captain nodded.

Orn grinned wide and asked, “Where were you two love birds going to?”

“The efrete exhibit,” Drake said.

“Isn’t that lucky,” Orn said. “We were just about to head there ourselves.”

“Great,” the captain sighed. “The more the merrier.”

Drake caught the dwarf inching up on his toes, whispering into the captain’s ear. She shook her head like a fly landed in her ear and jerked her chin at him. Drake turned away from the conversation, heading under the dwarven word for Efrete that blazed in pseudo flames.

More displays looking just like the thousand others they ran past circled the massive room. The only surprise was a pit in the middle. Ringed off by a red rope, half of a cracked pillar and the remnants of a mosaic filled the pit. A chipper dwarf stood beside the pillar, the haircut and outfit so unitarian he was uncertain what the tour guide’s gender was, not that it mattered.

The guide’s voice broke across the constant murmurs from museum patrons. “These ruins were discovered some one hundred years ago at the dig site on the colony Espess. Archeologists believe that this mosaic could have been laid down before dwarves even broke underground.”

“Wow!” A few PALM lights snapped as if saying something was old suddenly made a few bits of red and orange glass interesting.

“Is that true?”

Drake turned to find that pilot, Orn, staring at the pillar. “What?”

“You’re some archeoptomologist. Is that hunk of rock that old?”

Drake sighed. Either the captain told him the truth or lied to see if the dwarf would annoy him more. But he wasn’t about to rise to the bait. “Yes, it is that old.”

“Funny that,” Orn said, his fingers folding into his gloved hand. Drake didn’t respond, but that didn’t slow the dwarf. “If we were still frolicking on the surface and you humans were squalled away up trees when the efrete were building vast cities…”

The sentence hung in the air like a garlic burp, weighing across Drake. He tried to ignore it, searching through the cases for something approximating that star-ruby, but the dwarf’s eyes bit into his skin. “What?! What’s so weird about it?”

Orn smirked as if he won, “How come they ain’t running the galaxy?”

“How the shit should I know?”

“Ain’t you an arkteaologist?”

Drake sighed, collapsing his head down into his hands. He was rescued as the dwarf’s wife called out for him. Orn tipped his head in an apology as if Drake wanted him to remain and dashed off. The two women were clustered around a cracked relic that looked like a screwdriver butterflied apart. The elf narrated it better than the tour guide still droning on about just how old something was, her ice eyes actually warming in excitement. Orn seemed unimpressed but nodded his head anyway, while the captain kept glancing around. If he didn’t know any better, Drake would swear she was taking stock of the security same as him.

“All right people!” the tour guide shouted, waving everyone onward, “we’re about to cross into the sensitive section of the museum. I need you all to turn off your PALM lights as the pieces are in danger of breaking down from over exposure. Thank you!”

The crowd of dwarves, a couple elves, and one gargoyle pushed onto their hands and formed a queue behind the woman. Drake glanced back at his group, but they were huddled around a chunk of space rock 2/3rds pretending to give a shit. Feigning shutting off his own PALM, he followed behind the massive gargoyle.

“These relics were discovered when a young farm boy chased after a lost fleek and stumbled into a crevice. What he found completely altered our knowledge of efrete history.”

Drake tried to peer around the gargoyle’s ass, but all he saw was dwarf head. Sighing, he tapped his foot, waiting for the gawpers to finish pretending they cared.

“What do they do?” a young voice asked from the front of the line.

“We have no idea. Only a scrap of the text emblazoned across them has been translated, and even that is still hotly debated. Some suspect they were used in fertility rituals to honor the gods of harvest. Others think they were owned by the priests as ornamentation.”

A few more of the patrons uttered an “ah” or “wow” before realizing they were looking at some lost civilization’s trash heap. Slowly, the dwarves filtered out of the tiny room, allowing the elves to scowl from their air of pomposity. The gargoyle stood giddy in the middle, his head swiveling in excitement, causing grit to slide down his carved shoulders. Drake pinched his nose to hold in the sneeze. In thicker glass cases sat more of the same bits of whatever. Done up in golds and silvers, a gem or two glittered beneath but they looked less like jewelry and more like what someone expected to find jammed into a futuristic console on a sci-fi show.

Having exhausted himself and coated the floor, the gargoyle finally turned away leaving Drake mostly alone in the room. He pinched himself to keep from squealing. In the second case from the left sat that damn star, the ruby glittering sharper in real life. It twisted softly as the three dimensional pedestal twisted the floating piece.

Licking his lips, Drake turned back to find the tour group moving on towards another bit of useless crap. One security guard paced about beside the pillar. Not a huge problem if he was quick. No, the issue was the other one glaring down upon him. This one was an ogre, that massive head fused to shoulders made them easy to out dodge, but pretty much impossible to survive a hand to head fight with. Nature gave the ogre the kind of head butting power that could crack a ram’s skull in half.

“Hey!” Drake groaned as that damn dwarf stepped behind him. “What’s going on in here? More of the same, huh?”  
He turned to face Orn, maybe make some pithy remark when the captain followed behind. The ogre finally glanced away from Drake to glare at her.

“Ma’am, I need you to turn off your PALM.”

“Okay, sorry,” she muttered, and held up her right hand in a mea culpa. She began to push on the palm of her left hand but froze. Drake caught the movement too and he spun back to watch as his prize, the only way he was getting back his ship and his blood, vibrated.

It no longer pulsed smoothly up and down in the case, but twitched erratically. The ogre caught the shock in the guest’s eyes and slowly twisted its massive upper body to whatever they stared at.

“What the…” was as far as he got before the star-ruby released a massive whine. Vibrating beyond eye movements, it swayed in excitement and smashed through the thick glass. Before anyone could duck out of the way, the relic flew through the air and landed right into the captain’s hand.


	6. Chapter 6

Scorching metal burrowed into the palm of Variel’s right hand. She opened her mouth to scream, but pain ebbed away as soon as it bit, numbing her hand oozing up to the elbow. The ruby in the center of the silver attack star lit up, pulsing. With a start, she realized it was synching up with her heartbeat.

“Put the relic down.”

Variel turned away from her impaled hand to glance down the barrel of a gun. A Turgid 98 if she was to guess, the favorite of security guards who couldn’t hit the broad side of a freighter. “Okay, okay,” she said and tried to pull the star away, but it stuck. Her fingernails bumped into the edge of the metal and couldn’t pass underneath. The damn thing formed a tight seal around her.

“Take it off,” the guard shouted again, “now!”

“I can’t!” Variel screamed back, still scrabbling against the invader.

“This is not a joke!”

The guard was stuck on one mode and wasn’t about to break free. Slowly, Variel raised both of her hands above her head. The stolen relic remained firmly implanted. She glanced around at Orn and he had his hands up as well, his eyes agog and focused on the shattered glass.

“You want it?” Variel said, gesturing to her hand. “Come and get it yourself.”

Ogre eyes shifted from her hand to her face, as if she was hiding a weapon and about to trick the security guard. Maybe this happened a lot, ancient alien technology latching onto people’s hands, or stomachs, or faces. They probably had a procedure on a laminated poster in the back to remove it, and it was just her luck to get the trainee on his first day.

“Do not move,” the Ogre said.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Variel answered, well aware of what that gun could do to her skull.

The Ogre pulled a small box out of his pocket and shouted into it, “Office, we have a—”

Smoke burst below the Ogre’s feet, cutting off his call. A hand grabbed onto Variel’s wrist and yanked her around. She glared into that jack ass’ eyes, his fingers digging deep into skin that couldn’t feel it.

“Come on!” he shouted, dragging her on.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” But, as blue smoke cut off the oxygen in the small room rolling out into the hall, she picked up her feet and ran. Drake held her tight, dashing through the hordes of confused guests.

“What’s happening?” the tour guide squeaked, trying to raise a modicum of control.

“Fire!” Drake shouted, “There’s a fire, everyone get to safety!”

It took a second for his words to reach their brains. When one of them pointed to the tendrils of smoke leeching into the hall, a scream began and reverberated through every throat. Panic isn’t even close to what happened. Adults, children, dwarves, elves, goblins - all threw each other to the ground to try and escape through the one door. Only the gargoyle stood calm, watching the smoke and snapping a few pictures.

“Great going,” Variel muttered watching hordes of arms and legs entangle in the doorframe.

“Can you do better?” he asked, glaring at her. Still he wouldn’t let go of her wrist.

Through the screams of terror, she heard the controlled cry of guards asking what the hell was going on. Glancing back around the display, she caught a possible way out. “Yeah, I can. Orn! Ferra!”

“Right here, boss,” Orn shouted, coughing into his fist. Ferra waved her hand around him, trying to clear the air.

“Good, stay behind me.” Now dragging Drake, Variel crossed over to the well hidden crack beside the fire facade.

“What are you doing?” the man as attached to her wrist as the alien tech asked.

“This,” Variel answered. Without ceremony she raised her leg back and kicked into the wall. The hidden emergency door popped open to a world of utilitarian walls and peeling tile. “Everyone in!”

Orn ran under her arm, reaching for free air. Ferra took a moment to pause and lift an eyebrow at Variel, but trailed her husband. “After you,” she said to Drake. He eyed her up, but didn’t argue, his smoke bomb over clocked and biting into both their eyes.

Blinking through tears, Variel ran into the hall and slammed the fire facade door shut. She reached up to wipe away at her face, and had another hand come with. “Would you let go of my arm?”

“I…” Drake looked down at her impaled hand and muttered something, but he dropped his grip.

She massaged her wrist and still felt nothing along her skin. It was like the whole thing fell dead from the elbow down. Whenever feeling came back it was going to hurt like shit. Drake stepped back a step, afraid she was about to kick him in the same as the door. He really should have looked a bit lower.

Five feet of pure powered rage snatched onto his bicep and dragged him down. Ferra hissed into his face, “What the fuck were you thinking? A 1200 cubic feet smoke grenade in a seed’s damned museum!”

“It wasn’t…” he tried to yank away, but Ferra had him tight and nothing would break her free.

“It was more like 1500 cubic feet, actually,” Variel said, “120 second burn too.”

Her calm voice did nothing to dissuade the rage hissing inches from Drake. He was obviously biting down a tremble of terror from the tiny elf. Variel half expected to find a puddle below his pants leg. Ferra did that.

“While I’d love to spend the day debating smoke grenade specs,” Orn sputtered through smoke clogged lungs, “Don’t we have bigger problems, like an entire museum of security guards looking for us?”

Variel sighed, wanting to watch Ferra chew Drake up and spit him out, but Orn was right. There weren’t any officials now, but they’d come barreling through the maintenance doors any second. Ignoring the pulsing numbness across her right arm, she glanced down the hallway. “That way?”

No one had any better suggestions and they started towards the unknown, glancing at each nondescript turn hoping information would appear. Two more hallways broke into others, narrowing then widening, one stooping low from a massive fiberglass branch. “Do we have any idea where we are?” Variel shouted, twisting around in confusion.

Orn licked his finger and held it up in the air. With a definitive shake of his head he said, “The museum, definitely.”

She glared at him, but he just shrugged those bullish shoulders. They could run around this maze for weeks, scared to try a door for fear it’d plop them into the middle of the security office.

“We need to find the pod bay,” Ferra restated the obvious.

“And how do we go about doing that?” Variel turned on her engineer, wanting solutions.

“We could ask that guy,” Drake’s voice piped up from the back of the group. Everyone turned to find a goblin, his green skin pocked with more acne than camouflage. The kid startled from the swivel of eyes and almost dropped the tray of rocks.

“Who…” his voice scaled the octaves before cliff diving, “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“You’re right,” Variel, shoved around Orn and Ferra to get closer to the goblin technician. “We’re terribly lost and would be more than happy to leave, but we need some directions.”

The goblin bobbed his head, his black eyes widening at the human looming above him.

“If you could tell us where the pod bay is located we’d happily get out of your ha-” Variel glanced at the smooth head and amended, “nose.”

A shaky finger extended to the right, “Take that hall to the end, then a right, and go down a maintenance ladder.”

Variel smiled, “Thank you so much.” And then she stuck out her damn hand to shake his.

The goblin’s mouth dropped and he shrieked, “You’re the thieves!”

“Sorry,” Variel muttered. Wrapping her fingers around the priceless relic, she smashed her fist across the kid’s head. He dropped to his knees, the rocks he carried tumbling and bouncing down the linoleum. She tried to catch one, but they all slipped her grasp.

“Go, go, go,” Variel ordered, taking up the head of the pack and following the unconscious goblin’s instructions. “Gods, I hope those rocks weren’t priceless.”

“What’s one more notch on this tab, Cap?” Orn asked.

A recessed ladder dented into the wall, easily missed if one wasn’t looking for it. Variel waved Orn and Ferra down it first, then paused to glare at Drake.

He motioned for her to go, while she did the same at him. The man even crossed his arms as if he wasn’t about to budge from this sudden turn of gallantry. Variel wanted to kick him in the leg and hurl him down the ladder.

“Hey! You there!” echoed down the hall.

“Shit!” Drake cursed. The stalemate broken by feet tramping down the hall, he swung onto the ladder and climbed down it two rungs at time. But it wasn’t fast enough. Echoes of “Stop! You’re under arrest!” and other mantras in the Security Guard’s Big Book of Sayings drove Variel to hop onto the top of the ladder.

She spotted the hurrying but still slow brunette hair. Shrugging a shoulder, she loosened her grip and slid down the ladder. Friction burnt under her left hand but nothing reached through the fingers on her right. Her legs reached out to try and find a catch, but skidded on the rungs and, as Drake reached the bottom, Variel crashed on top of him.

“Fuckin’ get off!” he cried trying to wiggle out from underneath.

“If you’d gone first you could have been on top,” Variel muttered, slowly sliding her foot out.

“Hey, we found one and…” Orn’s voice fell away as he spotted the two of them stumbling to get away from each other. “For alloys sake, can’t you save that shit for later?”

Both rose, neither offering the other a helping hand, and glared murder at the dwarf. Orn only shook his head, more concerned about something else.

“So we’re in the pod bay,” Drake moaned, checking his back for damage, “that’ll make it easier to find us and not much else.”

Variel snorted and shook her head. He turned from his bruise hunt to challenge her, “Really? You expect me to believe you can hack a pod? Just like that?” Drake snapped his fingers at the end.

She leaned to the side of him and called to her engineer, “Ferra?”

“Yup,” was all the elf said. Her massive hair was half collapsed, her barrettes now adhered to the unbreakable pod door. She held a small sphere herself and prodded a few buttons, causing the barrette to light up in different patterns. Glancing up from her work, Ferra’s eyes narrowed and she snapped her fingers.

The door cracked open as did Drake’s mouth. “How in the…”

“Get in!” Variel shouted, shoving past the confused man.

“No kidding,” Orn muttered. He crawled across his wife who unstuck her hacking hair accessories and slipped them back in place. Offering up one harness to Ferra, Orn unhooked a second for himself.

Drake flapped his hands about, “Okay, so, we get in a pod that then sits in the bay. We’ll have a few hours of air before they think to check the heat sigs.”

“Get in or stay here, I couldn’t give a shit either way,” Variel muttered and climbed in herself.

“Like I’m going to…” he yelped as the door slid closed and dived in after them.

“Damn,” Orn said, snapping his own fingers, “So close.”

“Ferra?” Variel asked, prodding her dead fingers into her PALM. The blue light flickered but booted up. Whatever this relic was at least it didn’t mess with her signal.

The elf twisted her head and closed her hand around the sphere. “Door is sealed for space flight. And that’s all I’ve got.” She dropped the ball into her pocket and crossed her legs, reclining back.

Drake glanced from the married couple leaning around like this was a late Sunday brunch to the captain calmly calling up someone to meet for a movie later. She felt the pooling eyes and twisted her head in a “what do you want?” move.

A beep reverberated from her hand and she shouted into it, “WEST, I need you to pull a 58 - pizza.”

“I’m sorry, Owner 23. The computer you are attempting to dial is no longer in service.”

Variel sighed and rolled her eyes at Ferra. The elf was staring at the ceiling as if she cared nothing for their predicament, but she lightly bobbed her head. “WEST, do this and Ferra will update your software. All of it.”

“Putting in a 58 - pizza!” the insane voice of the computer chirped, followed by a few buzzes and clicks. It was his signature sign off.

Variel closed off her PALM and slid an arm through the harness. The nylon strap snagged for a moment on the edge of the relic, and a pulse of not pain jarred through her arm. It felt like someone shot a stream of water to her elbow.

“I give in,” Drake’s clawing voice broke the calm. “What’s a 58 - pizza?” He still wasn’t slipping the harness on. Variel glanced towards it then back to his face, but he didn’t get the hint.

Sighing she said, “Simple, WEST calls their computer, sets up a delivery schedule, and they send us to collect it.”

“58 pizzas, who can say no to that?” Orn asked rubbing his hands. “Speaking of which, anyone got something on ‘em? I’m starving.” Ferra reached into her pocket and yanked out a poky stick. Chewing off the wrapper with his teeth, Orn shoved the entire chocolate concoction into his mouth.

“You might want to put that harness on,” Variel said, gesturing towards Drake. She snapped hers and leaned back, preparing for the coming force.

“There is no way…why would a museum even accept…how can? This will never work,” Drake ranted, his hands flailing around the harness.

A rumble shuddered below the pod, and it twisted around. Sounds of de-pressurization and a popping door echoed through the remaining oxygen. Drake tried to weasel an arm into the harness but the pod was already lined up. Like a marble through a vacuum’s tube, the pod shot out into space, sending anything not tethered down crashing into a wall.

Variel eyed up the man smashed against the wall and said, “Told you.”


	7. Chapter 7

Orn skidded down the hall tossing bits of the harness off as he ran. Variel followed behind, trying to not overtake and fighting down the urge to pick him up. The still sparking shuttle bay door was left to Ferra’s machinations. Cutting the escape pod’s line, while a prudent move to cut back on tracing, hadn’t been quite such a simple task.

A few of WEST’s emergency bots attempted to put out the fire by walking into it and spraying foam at each other. “This sector will be placed under lockdown in two minutes,” an uncaring voice droned across the Elation’s speakers piped in from the emergency channel.

“I heard ya!” Orn shouted. Slipping his bad hand into the door jamb, he threw the whole thing open and plopped into his chair. Controls rose from their slumber, blue and purple lights sparking. Variel took up the nav console to Orn’s left, booting up the lists.

“Take us away from the station,” she ordered. Orn snorted, already poking away at the engines and yanking back on the stick. The ship gurgled and banked to the right, trying to crawl away from Raptor. Red emergency lights beamed into the dead of space warning anyone not to do what they were planning.

Variel scrolled down the lists of available pinches, focusing only on the times. Five minutes, an hour, six days; the data blurred when a small green line flashed: available now. Plugging in the data, the Nav Council accepted the flight path. “It’s in, Orn!”

“She’s pretty cold,” he said, vibrating a switch as if that would increase the MGC flow.

“This sector will be placed under lockdown in one minute.”

“No choice,” Variel said. Leaning back onto her heels, she gripped tight onto the console, wondering not for the first time why there weren’t more chairs on the bridge.

“A’right. Hang on, everybody!” Orn shouted despite the ship’s comms shut off. Sliding his fist across rows of buttons, the Elation kicked from one side to the next. Safety harnesses snapped tighter around the pilot. A guttural gurgle popped from the back of the ship. Metallic air bit the air causing Variel’s nose to wrinkle from the taste.

As the MGC filtered from the storage units to whatever altered the fabric of space, a ribbon of blue split a couple hundred meters outside the Elation’s viewscreen. Then it cracked open.

Orn grabbed onto the stick and pulled them into the wyrm pinch. Blue ribbons of energy danced with the reds of something that might also be energy. No one stayed long enough inside a pinch to figure it out. A few talked about it, swearing if they just got the funding they’d find the answers to life inside. There were plenty of fantasy stories of monsters who lived in wyrm space coming to either destroy, fertilize, or do both to the rest of the galaxy.

But to everyone else eking out a living traveling from one side of the galaxy to the next it was just a tunnel, albeit one that at times looked like the back of your retinas. “We’re almost through,” Orn said, his hands vibrating as wyrm space fought back.

“How’re the MGC reserves holding up?”

“Uh…good? I’m not the engineer here. If we didn’t have enough the pinch wouldn’t have opened. Right?” His question hung as he glanced towards Variel.

She tried to think of all the safeties put in place by massive corporations who didn’t want to keep paying for flowers at funerals. There was a long list of things spaceships were supposed to come equipped with, ones antiques like the Elation-Cru could legally ignore.

But the concern was for naught as the red ribbon folded back and the blackness of normal space emerged. The ship tumbled out into the smattering of stars and the universe zipped back up the wyrm. Orn sat back and the harness freed him from the chair.

“That was exciting,” he said, doing the flight check he should have done before the wyrm pinch. “And we’re almost out of MGC.”

“How almost out?” Variel asked. A horn blared beside her. She covered her ears and prodded the damn thing. It pulsed in angry red a very low number. She expected it to cluck its tongue at the captain that dared to get it into such a predicament.

Sighing, she shook her head, “Raising the sails.” While little to someone sitting on the ship, to a passing space dolphin on its way to figuring out what the hell it breathed, the bed-pan shaped ship appeared to unfurl massive metallic wings. Popping from the sides, they held taut in the lacking breeze of space, but they weren’t there for movement.

“It’ll take a few days to fully recharge the MGC,” she said reaching to massage her forehead. A lump mashed into her instead and she paused, staring at the metal protruding into her skin. It should hurt, the flesh rising over the impaled spikes looked particularly painful. The fact it didn’t turned her stomach more than her torn hand.

“What do we do now?” Orn asked at a loss. Sails killed all nav but some limping impulse engines. Unless you wanted to shred them off, then you could do whatever you wanted.

“Wait a few days,” Variel said, still glowering at the relic, “until the corps cools down.”

“Yeah, they’re known for not overreacting. You know those corps officers, always a perfectly reasonable lot,” Orn said, shaking his head. “This also means we’re gonna be stuck with your, uh, what do human’s call it? Night toy?”

“Shit.” She’d vaguely nudge the man with her foot to see if he was still alive and left him on the pod’s floor. There wasn’t time to offer assistance, not that they had much to give. “Run a search on Drake Bane.”

“How’s that spelled?” Orn asked, waking up the projected keyboard.

“I have no idea. Try a few options. It’s probably an alias anyway. Gods I hope so, or his parents hated him.”

“Hm, looks like the only beacon is a 5 kwp. Gonna take awhile to get an answer.”

Variel sighed, “I’m not surprised.”

“Wait, where the hell are we?”

“It’s not important. We’ll be leaving soon enough,” she answered, logging out of the nav computer and inputting a password. Last thing she needed was Mr. Liar getting smart.

“FYI, Cap, that sounded super ominous. Where are you going?”

“To talk to Mr. Bane about this relic and get it the hell off of me.”


	8. Chapter 8

He sat on the floor, sucking in a breath through what had to be a bruised rib. Drake closed his eyes and leaned back when something smacked into his knee. Sitting up, he glared into the soulless input lens of one of the fire bots. Half of its grey box was coated in foam from its companion, the flames hardening it so it looked more like a cheesy alien from an old sci-fi movie.

Drake felt a twinge of pity for the thing struggling to overcome one wheel coated in foam. Sliding his hand underneath, he picked the bot up and wiped down the wheel, spreading the coagulated foam across his pants. The bot dropped to the ground and rolled forward, then it paused and the head swiveled back.

He twisted his own head, surprised at the mindless bot expressing gratitude, when foam shot out of the hole splattering across his face. “You son of a…” Drake shouted, trying to chase after the bot.

A hand grabbed onto the back of his jacket and the bot skittered away probably laughing so hard it foamed itself. Wiping at the foam before it hardened inside his nostrils, he turned towards the hand’s owner.

The captain glared at him, as if she did anything else. She pointed at his coated face, Drake’s prize glittering in the shuttle bay lights. “Start talking,” she said.

“Your batshit AI sprayed me,” he answered, still wiping away at his face.

The glare cranked higher and he realized she wasn’t talking about the foam. “What? What do you want from me?”

“You threw a smoke bomb at a security guard!”

“You’re welcome.”

“Welcome? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Oh, you’d prefer I let them shoot you?” Drake tried to focus on her face, but he kept catching the ruby glint out of the corner of his eye. It was so close but so far.

“Shoot me? By a security guard? Working a glorified children’s museum? They weren’t going to do anything except help get this thing off until someone went full terrorist on them.”

“I’m no terrorist!” Drake shouted, inching towards her. He was a lot of things to a lot of people, but he’d never do anything for a cause. If money wasn’t involved, he wasn’t waking up.

“Right, you’re an archeologist,” she sneered. “So, Mr. Archeologist who studied the efrete and knows all about their ancient civilization…How the fuck do I get this off my hand?!” She shoved the star right into his face, the ruby almost bouncing into his nose. Drake’s fingers itched to reach out and grab it, yank it free with all his strength and bolt from the ship. Instead, he cupped the back of her hand and tilted it down.

With his other hand he circled around the edges of the relic. The metal was body temperature warm, but the gem remained as cold as space. When his fingers got too close he yanked them back, the frost biting deep. “Have you tried calming down? Perhaps it’s activated by hormones. Acting hysterical can’t be helping.”

She yanked the relic out of his hands and grabbed his shirt collar. Hauling his face closer to hers she growled, “This is calm.”

He wanted to point out that her veins were throbbing in a stew of brain chemicals, but her grip was so strong he blood flow slackened through his arm pits. You sure can pick ‘em, Drake. Maybe next time go for the one who can’t benchpress a troll.

“Well, I don’t know. I’ve never heard of an efrete device attaching itself to a person before.”

Her fingers slackened and she released his jacket. Blood mercifully raced back to his depraved arms. “I rather doubt you’d heard of the efrete until a few days ago.”

“And you’re an expert? Some academic on sabbatical from that high strung life who took up smuggling for fun?”

She leaned back, blinking in surprise. “Shit…”

Drake stumbled, fears that she actually was someone knowledgeable about that thing on her hand filling his mind. What if she was competition? Someone sent to infiltrate and steal it out from under Oless? How the fuck was he going to swipe it and get off the ship now?

But then she shook her head and muttered, “Sabbatical. I had no idea you knew that big of a word.”

He curled his lip and clipped, “I don’t see you crafting some well honed plan to rescue yourself from that…relic.”

“A relic you know nothing about, despite claiming otherwise,” she folded her arms brushing that frozen ruby against her skin. He flinched in sympathy but she didn’t react from the frost.

“We’ve already been down this road, or shall we waste time while the dwarven Antiquities Board hunts us down?”

She rolled a shoulder as if that was far from her biggest concern. Either this woman was insane, had a stack of bodies in her wake that could rival a war, or both. Drake glanced around the dark and very empty shuttle bay. A prickling began along his shins and down his back; this was normally when he’d be running.

“I know nothing of efrete technology, society, or how they took a shit. Happy?”

She sighed, as if she’d expected the answer but hoped for something else.

“Why don’t you take a picture of the damn thing and hex it?” The voice echoed around the bay, causing Drake and the captain to crane their necks.

“Ferra? Where are you?”

“Repairing the stupid pod,” a blonde head poked into the light. Grease coated her hands, which she wiped down a pair of pants the exact same color.

“Why?”

Those elven eyes rolled to the captain and she said, “Call it a hunch.”

“Fair enough,” the captain agreed. Holding her hands apart, she reached down with the middle finger of her left and tried to snap a picture on the PALM. Drake spotted the image of giant fuzzy blur obscuring most of the relic.

“God’s damn it!” she cursed, still snapping a couple more despite her finger always being in the way.

“Here,” Drake grabbed her right hand and steadied it. Her head jerked towards him, but she didn’t reach for his collar again. Starting up his own PALM, he deleted a few pictures clogging up memory space and zoomed in on the metal burrowed into her.

“There,” he said, holding up the picture like a prized catch.

“We’ve already seen it,” she said yanking her hand out of his again. “Do a reverse image search.”

“Ah, right, about that…” he stalled, his brain trying to come up with an excuse for why his data plan was in the irrational when wonders of wonders, the search engine booted up.

“What Can Hex Find For You?” greeted him in the golden box. Drake uploaded the picture and hit send, trying to keep his thumb from bashing into the PALM chip.

“Should you include some keywords?” the captain asked, peering close to his hand.

“Like what?”

“Metal, ruby, star?”

“Stolen, relic, wanted, reward?” Ferra added, getting a glare from the captain.

“Ah, here we go.” PALM’s, while useful on the go and difficult to accidentally drop into toilets, ran on the barest of interfaces. A few lines of text and one small picture matched the relic. “It’s called the Ruby Star.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Nope, see,” Drake held up his PALM to prove it.

“Fine, dwarves are uncreative as shit. What’s it say about getting stuck to people? Any tricks for removing it?”

Drake scrolled down his hand, the holographic text on his cheap model fading into his peach skin. Twisting his hand, he read through the tiny scrap twice before facing her, “Nothing.”

“What?”

“There’s nothing, no mention of this thing ever sticking into someone, much less flying through the air and impaling itself. They seem to think it was jacksquat, some little toy or possibly a reliquary to hold dead martyrs. Ew.”

She grabbed his PALM and almost cracked his wrist to read off it. “That’s stupid, this has to have happened before to other people, they must know about…” her voice died away as the same five sentences shuffled a few inches above his hand.

Her head hanging down, she picked up the Ruby Starred hand and flexed her fingers. Drake wanted to reach out, to stop her before she burned them, but her tips rubbed across the stone without her flinching.

“Captain!” Three heads swung up to find a pair of clones standing in the shadows.

She dropped her hand behind her back and rose up on her heels, “Yes?”

The clones stepped closer and the light illuminated those damn goblins. Drake barely hid a “Holy shit” behind his hand.

Even the captain started with a “How did…” but she rebounded quickly to, “Was there something you needed?”

“Oh,” the red one spoke for his husband, “we felt the wyrm pinch and were curious what hidden corner of the galaxy we’re at now.”

“Such a quick exit from the museum,” the blue one said. “We were only back for ten minutes at most when the museum began that light show. I’m sorry, I had to leave early. Headache.”

“Ah, yes, we believe in efficiency on this ship,” the captain said.

“Punctuality is a sign of a cultured mind,” the red one commended as if rewarding a dog.

“We’re at a small depot, it’s only a stop over while we re-charge the sails. But I believe there’s a nebula on the port side,” she said, then pointed towards the left.

“Ah, captain, what is that?” the red one exclaimed, catching the glint of the Ruby Star in her hand.

“It’s a…” she glanced at the elf, who shrugged, then turned towards Drake. He was as much at a lost. Admitting anything had value around a goblin was as good as saying “Please, take this. Clearly I could not want it because I’m not as sophisticated as you.”

Her eyes narrowed, probably at Drake’s nonplussed face, and she turned back to the goblins. The sheen of panic was wiped clean by pure business, “It is a souvenir. A small trinket that I am taking back for a niece.”

The goblin’s head nodded, “Good, good. Quite a find. It almost looks real.”

“Dear,” the blue one cried, “let us leave them in peace.”

“Don’t mind him. He quite enjoys nebulae.” And before the trio had a chance to shove any more feet in their mouths the goblins turned around and exited back to the port side.

She released a sigh and sagged. Under her breath, the captain muttered, “I completely fucking forgot about them.”

“Maybe they’re star touched,” Ferra said.

The captain laughed at the idea of psychic powers from the stars, “Whatever the reason, they got damn lucky.”

“Ten minutes before the whole station went into lock down? I don’t know about you, but I might hit them up for mawg racing options later.”

“Is there really one over there?” Drake asked, breaking the two women up.

“One what?” the captain turned to him.

“A nebula on the port side?”

She shrugged, “Probably. If you look far enough, you’ll find anything in space.”

Drake smirked at the ingenuity of how to keep a goblin busy for hours. The captain didn’t watch his bit of praise, she was trying to pry her fingers under the star. But there was no space between the metal and her hand, no grip to even wiggle it apart.

“Did you try a wedge?” Ferra asked, digging into her pockets and procuring a screw driver.

The captain nodded her head, “Swiped one out of the kitchen. Couldn’t get under.”

“Lube?”

Despite being thirty-four, a blush rose at the back of Drake’s neck. But she only shook her head in defeat, “Slicked up the screwdriver and impaled it into a wall. Oh, you’ll probably want to fix that.”

The elf sighed, tapping her claws into her thin lips. Calculations ran across the backs of her eyes as she dissected the problem. Drake wondered if she really cared about the dire straights of the captain or just enjoyed the challenge. She didn’t seem the type to make friends with something that didn’t have a microchip for a brain.

“What if we cut off one of the star’s legs?”

“NO!” Drake shouted, waving his hand over the relic to protect it.

“Who said you get a vote?” Ferra growled, glaring up at him.

“We can’t. I hope to get the damn thing off, write a very nice letter about what happened, and send the whole thing back to Raptor.”

“So no damaging it?” Ferra asked.

“No,” she twisted her head and closed her eyes. A breath rattled in her nose and Drake could have sworn she exhaled twice.

“What if I damage it a little?”

“Ferra…”

“I’m out of ideas,” the engineer said, stepping away. She wiped her hands of both the grease and the problem.

A buzz reverberated through the shuttle bay and Orn’s voice echoed around them, “Hey Cap, ya busy?”

“What is it?” she asked before adding, “and yes.”

“It’s about that thing you wanted me to search for. I…you might want to call me about it. You know, alone.”

“Fine,” she shouted. Nodding to Ferra, she stepped away. Drake could still hear her muttering, “If it was private why’d he call across the damn ship.”

Despite standing still, Drake felt the elf inch closer. She could loom, even at only five feet tall. Normally, he feared he might accidentally stomp on the shorter elves if he wasn’t careful, but this one was different. Her fingers dipped into her pockets, removing a small blade that was probably used for cutting wire and other innocuous things. But his mind couldn’t stop picturing it slicing into flesh.

You wound up on a ship of amazons, Drake Bane. Great job.

At least the captain was on his side of getting the relic off her and not damaging it. If he could find some way to weasel the whole shipping it back into putting it in his hands, he was golden. For the first time since Oless swiped his ship, Drake felt pretty good about himself. He even smiled as the captain came back from her embarrassing call.

She glanced at the elf still playing with the blade, then turned to Drake and smashed her fist across his cheek. Stars better than what the goblins could see shattered across his eyes. He reached out to stop the insane woman, but she grabbed his wrist and yanked it behind his back.

Her eyes glared into his, even as one dipped down in pain.

“What are you…” Drake tried to cry out, scrabbling to find a bit of sense.

“You, I knew you were dirty,” she hissed near his ear. Ah shit, Drake realized what she asked the dwarf to search for: him.

“I can explain,” he began, his eternal way of wiggling out.

“You can explain being on the No Fly List?”

The elf snorted, as if it was no big deal, “Which one?”

Without turning away from him, the captain yanked his arm higher, and sneered, “All of them.”


	9. Chapter 9

Variel’s hand tightened, yanking the lying sack of shit’s arm higher so he couldn’t escape. Ferra glanced at the man and said, “How can he be on every no fly list?”

“I ran into the law a few times…” Drake whined, then flinched at the pressure, “a few dozen times.”

“Dwarves forgive everything for the right coin,” the elf continued. Variel was afraid to speak for fear she’d rip out his jugular instead.

“Well, therein lies the situation…” he tried to reach out with his hand to grab onto Variel, but she caught his wrist. Drake yelped and weaseled away from where the relic touched his skin.

“You didn’t pay your fines,” Ferra said, nodding her head. There was an honor code amongst the dwarves a lot of species only passingly grasped. All was forgiven for the right compensation. Fail to do that and you were walking dead in the eyes of the galaxy.

Drake twisted his head and said almost proudly, “And I may have been romantically linked with a magistrate’s daughter…s.”

“You erupting ass boil bag of dryad dick!” Variel finally cursed. “A magistrate? You fucked with a magistrate…Oh gods.”

“She was only magistrate of a small family township. A couple degrees at most,” he said shrugging, but it was too late to escape the truth now.

The engineer turned to her boss and spoke the words hanging in the air, “Blackballed? He’s blackballed?! And you let him on your ship. On this ship?”

“I didn’t know he was blackballed. Dwarves stopped branding those a few centuries back,” Variel grumbled still inspecting the human’s forehead for a possible mark.

“That’s no excuse,” Ferra said, getting a glare from Variel. “I mean it will not hold water in the dwarven courts, or elven. Do human’s even let it pass?”

“Sometimes, if you’re clever,” Variel sighed. A thousand problems buzzed in her head, and all of the solutions she could envision involved tossing Drake down a chute with a nest of ravenous balors at the bottom. But that wouldn’t actually solve it. Releasing his hand, she stepped away from the man. He massaged his mangled wrist. In the low light she could see a few welts from her fingers digging in.

Ferra inspected the man, twisting her head to the side, “He never registered. Only we and the goblins know of him. I suspect after a few more weeks of travel they’ll forget his name and likeness. Yes. Break his neck, direct the body into space, and burn it with an engine burst.”

Her even tone was spoken the same as if she was diagnosing a broken injector port or fuel gauge. Drake’s head pivoted from Variel to the elf, and a high pitched, “Excuse me,” tumbled from his mouth.

“It is the least bloody; there is a narrow chance to have DNA or skin cell contamination.”

Variel enjoyed the twist of terror as the oh so clever man crashed into the indomitable will of engineering thinking. Sighing, she shook her head, and stepped back, waving Ferra with her. For a moment Drake looked as if he wanted to keep near Variel to protect him from the crazy elf, but she sneered and he remained rooted in the spot.

“We’re not going to kill him.”

“Why not? Do you know what happens to ships known to harbor not just a no flyer but a blackballer?”

“Death, Dismemberment, Docking Salary: though probably not in that order.”

“Docking for generations. The dwarves have the galactic right to continue collecting fees from family and distant family until all is reimbursed.”

“The galactic right given to them by the dwarves,” Variel said. It wasn’t that the dwarves were put in charge so much as no one wanted to argue they weren’t when they held the keys to all the bank vaults.

“So removing all evidence of this…Drake, would be best. I can wipe WESTs memory with the next personality purge and…”

“We can’t kill him because we still need him,” Variel explained, getting a glare from Ferra.

“For what possible reason could we need that?”

“He knows about this thing, and we aren’t getting out from under the corps until it’s off me.”

“He didn’t even know what it’s called,” Ferra pointed out.

“True, but he’s been eyeing it up ever since it impaled into me. And he could have ditched us at any point on Raptor. If he wanted to find different transport that would have been the time. No, there’s more going on with this damn thing than we know.”

“How do you know?”

“Who brings a smoke grenade to a museum?”

Ferra shook her head at the logic and eyed up the human trying to slink away. “What do we do with him?”

“Keep him ignorant.”

“That should be easy.”

Variel smiled, “He doesn’t know the name of the ship or mine. I suspect the only one he can recite is Orn’s.”

“Like that’ll help him. Okay, WEST owes me, not that it’s in a helpful mood today.”

Variel remembered a small treatise from WEST while she tried to get coffee about the state of the galactic parasite working its way through the colon of the working class. Whoever let the computer download a troll political textbook was in for it later. “Keep an eye on him,” she said.

“I’m not good with idiots,” Ferra stated the obvious.

Both women glared at Drake who was obviously standing perfectly still and not planning on making a run for the borrowed pod. It was a wonder the man hadn’t gotten himself killed years back. He wasn’t cute enough to pull off the shit he tried.

“Cap?” Orn’s voice chirped through the ship comm as well as her PALM.

Sighing, Variel pushed on her unclaimed hand and asked, “What is it?”

“If you’re done clearing out any trash you need to, you might want to get up here.”

“Problem?”

“Always.”

Orn didn’t elaborate, preferring to play his little game. Variel ordered Ferra and Drake to remain in the shuttle bay until she had a better plan. Of course neither listened, the latter insisting he could help and the former saying she had nothing better to do.

Cracking open the bridge door, sugary smells assaulted her nose as smoke rose around her pilot’s chair. He turned at the interruption, red crystals glittering in the plume. At her furrowed brow he pointed to a stack of wrappers across the console and explained, “Gargoyle candy. You’re supposed to strike it then breathe in the sugar crystals. Burns like shit.”

“Orn…unless the problem was watching blood drip from your sugar encrusted nose, I don’t care.”

“Right, right,” he spun back, knocking more of the wrappers to the floor. A small carpet formed over time before Variel or Ferra issued the ultimatum of clean them up or prepare for war. No one was 100% certain where Orn tossed the wrappers after signing the cleaning treaty of surrender.

He waved his good hand at a monitor and an elven woman with pink hair and orange skin appeared. Her speech began mid-sentence, “…they aren’t divulging details beyond a need for the community to remain calm. Officials are instituting a complete wyrm pinch around the disturbance and have-”

“What does this have to do with us?” Variel asked, watching a crude animation of a hole plopping into space suck up some stars.

“Sorry, sorry, it’s after this bit,” Orn waved his hand forward speeding up the newscaster. “The hole’s weird though, right?”

“Is that its official name? The hole?”

“Mysterious phenomena don’t have marketing teams…there we go.” Orn paused before hitting play and glanced back to his boss. “Brought the whole team, I see.”

Variel felt the press of Ferra behind her back, while Drake’s hand hovered close to but didn’t quite touch her shoulder.

“Just play the damn thing.”

“All right, here we go.”

The hole animation faded away and the woman’s co-anchor, a dwarf wearing a hat made of steaks, took up reading the teleprompter, “A theft occurred on the station museum of Raptor earlier this cycle. Raptor - a popular destination and home to the jewels of the Shovan - was infiltrated by the thieves between the hours of 9 and 10. Corps authorities are working with the surviving guards to create a witness profile.”

“Surviving guards?” Drake repeated, “They make it sound as if we killed some.”

“You probably did with that overpowered smoke grenade,” Variel said calmly.

“I…no, that’s just no,” he stammered, surprising the captain.

“Will you both shut up?” Orn said, holding his fingers steady to pause the screen, “They haven’t gotten to the bad part yet.”

“Sorry,” Variel said, and waved him on.

The anchor dwarf folded his hands, still making no mention of the meat hat, and continued, “They are currently tracing wyrm pinches into and out of the station during the disturbance and will be sending ships to investigate those systems.”

“Well, shit,” Variel cursed, dropping her head into her hand.

“How long until the corps trace here?” Ferra asked.

“If they were smart, two to three hours,” Drake said. “But since they’re not, probably five to six.”

“And we won’t be recharged until…” Variel asked, glancing at Orn.

He knocked a few more wrappers away and said, “Thirteen hours give or take your mother. WEST added that last part.”

“Suggestions?” Variel asked.

“Guns ablazing and take ‘em down with us!” Orn shouted, waving his hands in the air.

“Right, Orn’s not allowed to talk anymore. Ferra?”

Her engineer raised one hand, “Well, either we drop the sails and run as far as we can which wouldn’t get us out of the sector,” she lifted the other hand, “or we wait and pray the corps can’t be assed to chase us out this far.”

“What about you, smoke bomb? You have any advice for getting out of these situations?”

“Confess and take the plea bargain,” Drake admitted. “What? It’s never failed.”

Variel growled, throwing her hands up and caught sight of that damn relic. If it just let go, if she could pop it off and free herself from the damn thing they wouldn’t have to worry about the corps chasing after them. The ruby glittered, still pulsing with its own scheme.

“Are we near a trading post?” Ferra’s voice broke through Variel’s rage.

“Kind of…” the captain said. “Why?”

“Where the shit are we, anyway?” Orn interrupted.

“We need MGC, and I’m guessing we’re not anywhere fully legal or upstanding,” Ferra said glancing at the captain. She already knew the answer but Variel still nodded. “So, we find this post and get an amplifier.”

Everyone reared back from Ferra as if she spat at them. Before they could voice their opinions on how trollshit of a plan that was, she cut them off, “It isn’t dangerous if you only use it in short bursts, only a few times, and keep away from the edges.”

“Edges?”

“The MGC is not as uniform as it should be when used in an amplifier.”

“Meaning?” Variel wasn’t about to let this go, even if it was their only option.

“Meaning anyone too far from the core of the ship may have their blood arrive two feet away from their body.”

“Oh great, my blood’s always wanted to travel,” the captain snipped.

“You asked for an idea and I gave it. Unless you can think of something better…”

“Surrender is preferable to that blood ship thingie,” Drake muttered.

“We’re not surrendering!” Variel stepped in.

“Good,” Orn interrupted, “because I’ve got a few parking tickets that I’m sure they’d love to add to the list of grand theft, destruction of dwarven property, and terrorism against the state.”

“Terrorism?”

“Yup, apparently that little grenade from ol’ smokey there was a high enough burn to count as a bomb. Lucky us.”

Variel ran her hand through her hair, the edge of the relic snagging on the trip down. “Okay, we do Ferra’s plan. Set down on the planet, get an amplifier, and pinch anywhere else.”

Ferra pointed out the flaw in her own machinations, “Are we even certain this trading post has an amplifier? We’ll lose recovery time while we’re in atmo.”

“Oh yeah, it’ll have it,” Variel said.

“Where the hell are we, again? I think you keep forgetting to mention that.”

Variel steeled herself for the coming rage as she brushed her fingers across the ruby star. “It’s an Orc Depot.”


	10. Orc Planet

A cart rattled down the packed dirt of the lot, kicking more red dust into the sky. The woman pushing it spotted Variel and gawked at the human climbing out of the ship’s airlock. Ferra called above her, “Don’t forget, it can’t be any bigger than five centimeters.”

“If this is so important, why don’t you come with?” Variel asked, landing on the last rung and pushing on the reverse button. The ladder retracted back into the parked Elation but Ferra didn’t step away.

“Very droll,” the elf said, “and it has to be calibrated for lepto. I won’t have time to reverse it.”

“I got it all right here,” Variel said waving her hand in the air. It took surprisingly little convincing that she should go alone.

Orn just nodded his head and gave a yup. Ferra twitched as if she wished she could come, but gave in to good old elven sense. It was Drake that surprised her. She thought for sure he’d be on her ass the whole time, drooling over the ruby star, but he scowled and refused to set foot on the ground.

Variel made certain to land the ship and lock the door before the Aloysius found out. Goblins and orcs didn’t mesh well. A pair of orcs stumbled past, punching into each other’s sides and she stopped as the camaraderie broke into real fists and fights. Dodging around the river of blood, she muttered, “Then again, orcs didn’t get on well with anyone.”

Stepping out of the cool of the hanger, Variel shielded her eyes from the burning sunlight and tried to glance around the sprung up market. This wasn’t an official orc colony — those were all locked off for everyone’s own good — but one of the trading posts they could legally operate under dwarven control. Technically, any species was welcome to trade for goods or services and while many posts along the other borders would sponsor a menagerie of aliens, orcs stuck to orcs.

Three children, already at Orn’s height, ran past dragging a bloated, misshapen balloon between them. A male orc, most likely their father, followed after. Bags tied around his neck jangled and clanged as he shouted for lil’ “Throat Cutter” and “Rock Gnasher” to slow down.

Variel stepped onto the road and smelled the wind. To the right wafted the scent of antiseptic, latex, and pretzels - or whatever the orc equivalent was. It was either an impromptu healing station propped up by the Doctors Without Atmos group or the bar zone. Orc liquor was an acquired taste in that it acquired your liver, your brain cells, and possibly your eyes if you drank it. Still didn’t stop some during the war from snagging a bottle and trying it. They sent out so many damn memos about not doing that with graphic pictures of inverted livers. Amazingly, there were very few PSAs about soldiers not taking up with any orc women.

On the left was the smell of produce rotting in an unforgiving sun, bleaching linen, and piquant herbs. She turned away from the market side of the post and headed right. If mechanics are to be anywhere, it’s as close to the booze as possible. Not many orcs shuffled through the stands, the days pickings slim. A few started at the human wandering amongst their midst, but after catching sight of the scar down her cheek, returned to their browsing.

Despite lacking the height, weight, grey pallor, and impressive underbite Variel moved as if she was one of them. The scar could have been a curse, but it gave her access to things most unscrupulous humans dreamed of. It also itched like mad in high humidity.

Propped upon ramshackle buildings, a few signs rattled in the winds. The “Duke’s Prolapsed Anus” seemed in poor shape, the ends dipping as it slapped against the fuselage siding. In the distance she caught sight of a table beneath a bright red canopy. Metallic cylinders lay across it, with no rhyme or reason to the piles. Holding her PALM up, through the gloves she borrowed off Orn, it translated the sign as “Legitimate Space Parts.”

Smiling, she closed her hand and walked towards the mark. The shopkeep bared those bottom fangs at her, a sort of orcish smile. Variel stepped around three men prodding at the merchandise with no intent to buy.

“Lads,” the shopkeep said dismissively. Variel was surprised to find that despite her being only at best a foot taller and not much wider, the shopkeep was a woman. She was little bigger than those silly lads that slunk away, but the horns along her neck gave her away. Out of all the galaxy, orcs were probably the easiest to guess the gender of. Big, scary, neck horns - woman. Smaller, less scary, head horns - male. Dwarves, despite jokes to the contrary, could be judged based on facial hair. No one bothered with elves until they flat out told you.

“Hello,” Variel said, “I’m looking for an MGC amplifier.”

“Oh ho, now that’s one I haven’t heard in awhile. They’re a bit less on the legal side of export than one would like.”

Variel smiled, “So I’ve heard. Does that mean you don’t have one?”

“We pride ourselves on having all the tech you need at Zols,” most likely the one and only Zol said, thudding across her chest.

“Well, what I need is an MGC amplifier. If you don’t have it then I’ll have to look elsewhere,” Variel said, beginning the time honored tradition of walking away.

“Now, now,” Zol reached forward to catch Variel’s retreating attention, “I can see by that scar you’re an honorable woman. Proud and whatnot. Not someone to dither, right?”

Variel folded her arms, “You could say that.”

“Perfect, I hate wasting time, too. So you say you need an MGC amphitheater.”

“Do you have one or not?”

“I could, I could, not on me at this moment, but…You know the flower stand by the old rat fighting course?” Zol prodded.

Variel sighed, not playing in the game. “Of course you do, everyone knows it. See, if you meet me there in one hours time I can supply you with one of them MGC thingies.”

“I don’t have an hour.”

“Thirty minutes, no, twenty! I’m very fast when I need to be.” Zol held out her fist, waiting for her to seal the deal.  
Variel glanced at the offer and said, “It can’t be larger than 5 centimeters.”

“Of course, all the best ones are.”

“And it has to be lepto.”

“Not a problem; keep it all klepto.”

Variel sighed, she didn’t have a lot of options and the clock was ticking. Reaching out, she grabbed up to the woman’s elbow and punched her in the side. It would have downed a human but the orc only smiled, the deal sealed. “Twenty minutes,” Variel said, waving her finger.

“Right, right, twenty minutes. I’ll get you the MGC analyzer!” and before Variel could correct her, she dashed out of her booth through a back door and ran deeper down the square.

“Well, I probably just screwed myself over for twenty minutes. Ferra’ll go spare, as if that’s a new state for her. Might as well find that flower stand,” Variel muttered to herself. A small fear filled her that she’d never technically seen an orc care about anything scented that wasn’t meat related. What passed as a flower for them?


	11. Monde

As buds nipped at her finger, she got the answer. The orc flower on display was three feet tall, covered in inch long thorns, and hissed at people passing by. At first she didn’t want to get too close, pretty certain the thing was poisonous/venomous/radioactive, but boredom beat out common sense. Like with everyone else, the flower hissed and wafted a burning flesh scent at her in rage with her approach. She picked up a small stick and cooed at the plant. It snapped at the stick, a dribble of acid burning a hole through the wood.

A clattering of feet slapping the ground pulled her away from her new friend and an orc stood before her. She’d call him harried if they had any hair. His tasteful sweater vest was askew, and he panted from what looked like terror. “Excuse me, um, if I may ask a question of you…”

Variel tipped her head, curious but noncommittal.

“Do you have a ship available?” he asked.

She tried to bury a smile at the asinine question, as if a human lived on the trading post or hitched with other orcs. “Yes?”

“Is there a possibility I could procure passage upon it?”

Her first thought was to react with a sharp no, they were in enough damn trouble already, but coin was something they always needed. The goblin’s vacation time had to run out at some point. Slowly she nodded her head, “Yes?”

“And what do you typically charge for this?” He must not have much practice in negotiations; the males tended to leave that stuff up for the women who would literally punch the price down. Variel conjured up the closest to universal in orc currency, a fair deal give the Elation’s current status.

The orc accepted her words, nodding his head and patted at the skin tight pants. His face rose from concern to panic while he spun around pawing at his body, seeming to chase an invisible tail.

Variel got a whiff of desperation and a small klaxon blared in her mind. “Well, if that’ll be all…” she dragged the sentence out while slipping away from the orc. A few of the wandering customers could provide cover. It was easy to get lost in a sea of seven foot tall orcs.

“Wait!” the orc shouted, trying to reach for her right hand. She yanked it closer before he could make contact. “Your ship, is it, does it have a full compliment of crew?”

“We got someone to fix her when she’s broke, and break her when she’s fixed. I think we’re all full up,” she nodded her head, trying to cut off this conversation.

“What about a doctor?!”

Variel froze, giving the orc the opportunity he clearly needed. “Someone of your…Space can be quite dangerous; debris, and decompression, and ancient viruses springing to life causing you to devolve into a small rodent.”

Those orange eyes pleaded with her, trying to hit at a weak point. Variel eyed him up, and said, “We don’t have any orcs onboard that an orcish doctor could patch up,” but it wasn’t final. A question mark hung on the end. If he knew anything about humans and removal of foreign objects…

“I’ve been trained in nearly all of the five races anatomy, basic first-aid for thirty of the in-organics, and I can keep a gnome alive long enough to ask where it hid the watch it just stole.”

The orc gasped at the end of his speech, collapsing as if he passed the boards by the skin of his teeth. She didn’t glance at the lump below her glove, but what if this was a medical problem? He could inject something into her and get that relic to pop right off. Maybe she could solve all their problems right now in one toss of the dice.

“Okay, trial run. You can have free room and board in exchange for your medical prowess. It works out and we’ll talk stipend.”

The orc didn’t so much bow as grovel, his sweater in danger of dragging through the red mud. “Thank you, thank you. You have given me…” his accolades paused as those orange eyes glanced around nervously, “I, I have only one request.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“I do not wish to ever set foot on any orc controlled world as long as I am under your service.”

Variel shrugged, as if she gave a crap who went where. Only Orn needed to follow her most times and he could be bribed with the promise of sweets later. “Sounds like we have a deal. The ship’s docked at the landing port, Elation-Cru, can’t miss it. There’ll be a dwarf half coated in sugar pacing outside.”

“I will find it,” the orc said, bowing again. He gathered his small bag closer beside him with each dip and backed into the crowd.

“Hey! I’m Variel, by the way.”

“Demi Monde,” the orc said before dipping away and vanishing towards the parking hanger.

“Monde, eh? That’s gonna be a fun one to explain to the others,” Variel muttered under her breath. She reached back to return to petting her new friend which clicked and nuzzled her finger. Down the lane, a disturbance tossed a few orcs aside. Shoppers parted as if a prophet opened a people moving company. Variel folded her arms, anticipating what was about to occur.

“Be gone, shoo, I’m on an important job here!” followed the shopkeep bustling towards the lone human. She draped a shawl across her hat, either to disguise her from other shady dealers, or to combat the sun.

“You’re late,” Variel said. Late would have been ten minutes ago. If not for the doctor’s appearance, Variel would have left already.

“So sorry for the delay, there were some problems with the merchandise.”

“Its rightful owner didn’t want to give it up?”

“No, no. That is a silly thought. You humans are very humorous at times,” Zol waved her hands, jangling other “perfectly legal wares that fell off a truck” in her pockets.

“We’re hilarious. Now, where is it?” Variel held out her hand.

The orc reached inside a small bag and said, “One MGC Artificer.” Holding her claws away from delicate human flesh, Zol dropped a four and a half inch cylinder into Variel’s hand.

“Holy shit,” Variel exclaimed, holding the cylinder up. She wasn’t an expert on this tech — or any tech — but it was an exact replica of the images Ferra beat into her head. It even had the engraved letters warning against ever using the thing. “This is an actual MGC amplifier.”

“Yeah, that thing you said. All procured just for you,” Zol’s fingers swiped it away from Variel as the real dance began,

“Now, about payment…”

“Is that a lepto? I have no use for it unless it’s lepto,” Variel said. She still wasn’t sure what lepto meant or how it was important, but it was her remaining bargaining chip.

“Oh yeah, I checked three times,” Zol said, then her eyes lit up. “It’s why I was late. Checking on your merchandise.”

Variel sighed, knowing when she was licked. “For that amplifier, I can give you seven hoverpads.”

“I operate a shop not a repair store. What do I do with those?”

“You sell them,” Variel said, holding out the unopened package. For a brief window she thought about getting into the making your own grav-bike hobby and got as far as ordering five of the 265 necessary pieces.

Orc eyes danced across the crinkled package, unimpressed but not ready to give up yet. “What else do you have?”

Variel sighed and returned to her pockets, “Three plasma fuses, a carton of malt squares…” generously donated by Orn who realized he hated malt after eating half of the box.

Still Zol twisted her head. She must have thought the human dropping out of the sky would be the savior for a slow sale day. So she hustled out someone else’s work. Realizing the outside world was just as boring as theirs must have been crushing some dreams.

She didn’t want to have to do it, but Variel knew it was time to bring out the game changer. Dropping the pads and chocolate on the table beside the plant, she said, “To go along with all that generous offer, I’ll also include one hard boiled chicken egg.”

Zol gasped, her eyes widening at the porcelain shell before her. Humans tried to figure out what it was that drove orcs batty about eggs but couldn’t get much further than “Now we have here this egg and OH MY GODS, STOP EATING THEM ALL!”

“It’s a deal, I’ll take it,” Zol passed over the amplifier in one hand and cradled the egg like it held her own child inside. “And those moverpads and carton stuff too. You included it.”

Variel chuckled, even not knowing what they were or wanting them, she wasn’t about to turn down free stuff. Gathering up the Elation’s junk, she dumped it all into Zol’s arms. “Pleasure doing business with you,” the captain said, bowing her head slightly.

“What?” Zol didn’t glance up from the egg glistening with promise and sweat from her hands. “Yes, good day. Thank you.”

Her eyes still glued to the egg, Zol walked back towards her stand.

Variel picked up the amplifier and held it to her eyes. “I hope you work, we’ve only got another eleven eggs left to trade with.”


	12. Medbay Welcome

“So, this is it,” Variel said, waving her hands around the homey embarkation room. That was the fancy term for the cattle chute used to move passengers from outside the ship to inside. A few of the old lockers still rimmed the side, most emptied of their emergency suits long ago. The only remaining piece of hardware was a small computer screen set up in the middle of the room.

WEST blinked absently, the sound effects modulating in pitch and speed. It wanted attention but Variel wasn’t in the mood. She batted away another “Have You Updated Me?” screen.

“It is very interesting,” Monde answered, holding his meager bag tight.

She was a bit curious how far he expected to get with maybe three or four wardrobe changes in there, but didn’t want to crack open that can of wyrms. “The med bay’s this way,” she took the lead out of the cramped room and into the adjacent hall.

A sigh of relief burst from the orc no longer contemplating a life on the run spent inside a small locker room with a human.

“There are a few old rooms on the side but they’re reserved for passengers,” Variel said, “and about 75% are uninhabitable.”

“I see.”

She could practically see “beggars can’t be choosers” flashing across his brain. Variel was about to explain the other amenities like complimentary breakfast (if you burnt the toast yourself), linen washing (if you trusted WEST to not shred them in one of its moods) and free entertainment (Orn coming off a blood sugar spike), when Ferra charged through the door to the kitchen. The engineer swiped sweat off her forehead and held her hand out.

“Well…”

“Well, what?” Variel asked.

“Yes or no.”

Abandoning dreams of any accolades, Variel dropped the MGC amplifier into her engineer’s waiting hands. Ferra slipped off the casing and held the now exposed red wiring to the light. “A 4 and lepto,” she nodded her head, sliding back on the casing, “well done.”

Variel shook off the patronizing tone, grateful the elf didn’t pat her on the head. “How long will it take to install?”

“Fifteen minutes, another five to test it…And don’t tell me I’ve got ten.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Variel said holding her hands up.

Finally, Ferra turned away from her prized tech and eyed up the orc towering a foot above her. “Who’s this?”

“He’s our new doctor,” Variel said.

“Demi Monde,” the doc stepped forward, offering his hand.

Ferra eyed him up, watching the hand. “He’s an orc. That could be a problem.”

“It could?” Monde asked, his voice skittering like a centaur on ice.

“Embargo and all. How about you don’t pretend I’m here and I’ll pretend you’re not here,” Ferra said, summing up the complicated politics between elves and orcs in a sentence.

“That is acceptable?”

“Right,” she turned back to her boss and said, “Twenty minutes, then wyrm pinch. Not earlier. FAT ASS!” Her voice carried through the empty galley and down the hall to the bridge.

Orn in turn shouted back, “What?!”

“Every damn time,” Ferra shook her head before resuming the screaming match, “Get us off planet, now!”

As the two continued to shout orders at each other, Monde sidled up next to Variel and asked, “Do they not have some communication device?”

“Yup. My theory is they like yelling at each other.”

“Oh. And, if I may be bold, are you not the captain of this vessel?”

She turned towards the orc, surprised at his ingenuity to sniff that out. “Yes, I am.” Shouting at Ferra and Orn she interrupted their sparring match with a, “Carry on!” and pulled Monde through the galley. “This is the kitchen, we can show you some of the dining options later, though it’s mostly space food.”

He followed her, those double lidded eyes wide to take in every speck of information. Variel wanted to tell him there wouldn’t be a quiz later, but it was nice to have someone listen to her unquestioningly for once in a very long time. She missed that power.

“Now, here,” she waved her hand before a sensor and light flooded the room, “is the waiting room.” Small tables were shoved to the sides and most had chairs tipped up onto them as if the last cleaning crew made a sweep and never returned. One chair sat alone, the only one not covered in dust. It leaned against the door at the end of the room, just the right height for someone of the four foot size to peer through the port hole window.

Variel pulled Monde in deeper, yanking the chair away and placing it to the side. A moldy magazine crumbled to dust when the chair shook its resting place. Monde tried to catch the mass of paper, but it was like rescuing a blizzard. The captain already moved on, shoving open the last door. She waved at the sensor by the door, but nothing happened.

Pumping her hand like a mad woman at a parade, Variel finally gave up and shouted, “WEST!”

“You require my assistance now, Owner 23?”

“Turn on the damn lights.”

“With pleasure, Owner 23.” One lone bulb flickered at the edge of the room, casting just enough light to illuminate a panel below it.

“Very funny, WEST. Now turn on the rest of them.”

“I shall do as you command. Is now a good time to discuss updating my software?”

“Maybe later,” Variel said getting a harrumph from the computer. But it did lift the lights.

Monde tried to control his features, but the captain heard the gurgle deep in his throat. The med bay was at best a sub-doctor’s office. Ancient technology rimmed the black and slate green cabinets. Most were still covered in dust covers, while a few bits that should be attached rested in glass jars.

Carefully, Monde pulled open a drawer and jumped back as an entire box’s worth of 200 ml pipette tubes rolled towards him. “This is…typical for human medicine?”

“Not really, I’m not sure what’s all here,” Variel said, yanking the covers off of the equipment that came with the ship.

“Centrifuge, microscope, micro-autoclave,” Monde read to himself the things he could recognize. When he made that same gurgle in his chest, Variel suspected he either didn’t know what it was or had no idea what it was doing in a med bay.

“An entire cabinet full of 50 mL beakers. All right, that’s something.”

“What do you think?” Variel asked, waving her hands around.

The orc poked at the centerpiece of the bay, his claws digging up some of the green felt, “What is this?”

“It used to be an old billiards table but took up too much space in a room we cleared out. Now it’s the med lab table.”

“Ah, very well…” Monde’s voice dropped away as he prodded the table’s pockets, tipping them up. One revealed the long lost cue ball. “This…I will need some time to adjust.”

“Do whatever you need to get it working. Poke around the ship, we had to shift things around over time. I think I saw a box of syringes once. WEST might help you find shit. Stress on the might.”

“I thank you for this opportunity, Captain.”

She rose up, wanting to tell him to not call her that, but then she remembered the problem wandering the halls. It was best if everyone stuck to that until whatever Drake was was gone.

Monde glanced around the dusty and ancient lab, accepting defeat. Slowly, he lowered his bag to the pool/diagnostic table.

“Oh, right,” Variel stepped away from the orc, “forgot to tell you.” With a flick of her wrist, she unhinged the lock between two cabinets and a false wall swung back revealing a hidden room.

“There’s an office attached so you could stick a bed in here if you’d like.”

The orc smiled at the space, a sigh of relief rumbling through his snubbed snout. “Merciful spirits,” he muttered to himself.

“What, did you think I was going to make you sleep on the pool table?” Variel asked, cocking a hip.

“If not that, the bacteria laden floor.”

She laughed at that, and he returned in kind, “It would have encouraged you to clean it more. How long will it take you to get this place up and running?”

“I have never organized such a space before,” Monde admitted.

Variel wasn’t much of a judge of orcs beyond how to take one down, but she sensed that this wasn’t some aged doctor running from a not strictly legal practice. His skin, while grey and mottled, didn’t have the grit most older orcs got. Nor were his eyes clouded from the film that builds over time. Though it was harder to tell age with males, they maintained a much stricter beauty regimen.

“Well, get it to something you feel comfortable with and we’ll work on proper later.”

“Oh,” he nodded his head, his horns almost bouncing into what had once been the dining room’s chandelier. “I can do that. Is there some reason for the rush? A medical emergency you require help with?”

Variel sighed and picked at the finger on her borrowed glove. Sliding it off, she revealed the ruby star glittering gold in the bay’s yellow light, “Yeah, I need you to get this off me.”


	13. Beware Djinn

Drake stumbled in the hall outside the bridge. The dwarf made it very clear he wasn’t welcome to eavesdrop on his very important conversation with the elf. By the fifth go around of “I’m not going to that thing. You can’t convince me,” he grew to suspect Orn was doing him a kindness.

But there wasn’t much more to take up his time on the ship. So he sat outside, his back against the wall, listening to the news reports piping through an uncaring galaxy. After a heartwarming story about a lost gnoll that adopted a baby ogre and raised it as its own, they got back to the heart of the matter.

“Authorities are offering a reward for any information about the thief or thieves.”

“Reward,” Drake mumbled to himself, “great.” The possibility of free coin would pull out every batshit hermit which could overwhelm the already stretched Corps struggling against some massive larval infestation. Or, and what had him chewing his remaining thumbnail, it could catch certain people’s ears. Certain people who knew what he needed to do and where. Oless wasn’t stupid, she’d keep it to herself. If she wanted money she’d have sent him after a cat vid transfer. No, for her it was all about that ruby thing still locked up tight to the captain’s hand.

But Klack…”You had to go and tell him your job, didn’t you?” Drake asked himself, shaking his head. If the dwarf got wind of even a few scraps of gold, he’d toss his own mother to the volcano. He needed that star as fast as possible. Maybe if he mentioned Klack to Oless she’d clear up that loose end. With strings, of course. You don’t get to that level without knowing when to screw in the tacks.

The bridge door rolled back and Ferra stampeded over his legs. He tried to pull them back, but she’d already moved on, not bothering to apologize. “Thank you very much,” he shouted to the retreating elf.

He rose and inched into the bridge. The dwarf was locked tight in his chair, swiveling around the controls.

“What’s the word?” Drake asked.

“Captain’s back…” Orn turned and locked eyes with the human, “And that’s all I’m supposed to say.”

Drake snorted, “Fine, I wouldn’t want to come between you and your Captain.”

“Ain’t her ya gotta look out for,” Orn said, but swiveled away without elaborating.

Washing his hands of the situation, Drake stepped out of the bridge, stretching his back.

“Hey, Broken Tailpipe!”

“That’s not my…What?”

Orn’s voice singsonged, “You ever met a djinn before?”

“What’s a…” Drake’s voice drained as a lava elemental stepped out of the shadows. Its head skimmed the ceiling, the rocky skin dark as obsidian glass. Cracks etched along the beast revealed a red fire burning deep within the monster. It had no mouth or nose, but two holes sat where eyes would, the flames burning bright.

“Hello…” Drake said stepping back. The lava monster tipped those fire eyes down at him, but said nothing. Its fist, as large as Drake’s head, reached down and scooted the human aside. He stumbled from the force that would knock down mountains.

“Oh Gene, good. Cap’s back and Fer says she’ll need help,” Orn swiveled back to face the fire golem, greeting him like a colleague. “Can you handle that?”

Steam puckered around the monster’s face, bursting in three blasts.

“I guess that’s a yes. You know where she’ll be,” Orn waved his hands and turned back around. The golem dipped that massive head and turned back. This time Drake flattened against the wall, giving it a massive berth. Each footstep caused the grating to rattle and Drake reached up to a beam to steady himself. Halfway down the hall, the golem turned back and the fire eyes glared into Drake’s soul. He gulped at the presence and tried to hide a tremor. But the lava monster only resumed its march to find the elf.

Blood rushed to Drake’s wobbling legs and he clattered to the floor, “What in the hells was that?”

“You just met our onboard djinn.”

“It looked like a demon…”

“I wouldn’t go saying that to his face if I were you. His eye holes? His fog? Whatever,” Orn spun his chair haphazardly, waiting for something more exciting to happen.

“His fog?”

The beady dwarven eyes glared up at him. “For being some roguish archeologist you don’t seem to know shit.”

“I haven’t memorized every species in the galaxy,” Drake sputtered back.

“If you limit it to the ones that can talk, it gets easier. I have a little song I sing. B is for Banshee, shrieking harridan…”

“Please stop,” Drake tried to interrupt the dwarf’s singing, but it was the elf that silenced him.

“Fat ass!” echoed down the hall so sharply Drake covered his ears. Orn responded in kind and a new argument broke out.

The human tried to shrink away from it all, but he found himself caught as the pair debated the best way to get off planet. Apparently blasting a hole to the center and back out was not advisable. Nor was skipping all the atmo checks, latching onto the back of a cruiser, and using the momentum to swing them into space.

Even as Orn bickered with Ferra, his fingers flipped through the controls retracting the landing gear and prepping the ship. Drake peered over and remarked, “Not bad.”

“Do you want to critique my wiping skills next?”

“Front to back,” Drake said without missing a beat.

“Front to…” the dwarf grumbled before leaning forward on the stick. The still nameless ship shuddered and tipped to the side but got airborne. Zipping through the open hanger, the smell of burnt jam filled the air as the inertia dampeners kicked in. Drake barely felt the g-forces as the ship climbed through grey skies and pale clouds into the darkening depths of space proper.

The final pluck of the planet released her hold and the ship shot forward, the jam smell switching to a broken gas line. Drake lunged forward from centrifugal forces kicking him in the ass. “Dampener must be cracking,” Orn calmly said then glanced down at the man toppled across the deck. “You still alive?”

“Yes…”

The dwarf ignored his response, already working the control board with less grace than expected. Drake shook his head and rose back to his feet. His fingers prodded another fresh bruise under his eye. Great, after this trip he was going to need a few days in a skin repair mask just to get back to passable. Maybe he should recommend a month’s worth to the captain.

“Orn?”

Drake jumped as that woman’s voice echoed around him. He glanced back terrified that she could pluck the thoughts from his skull, but the dwarf flipped the comm and asked, “What?”

“We’re in orbit.”

“Ah duh, it was better than putting it underground.”

Drake could hear her eye roll across the line. “Bravo. Prep for a pinch hop once Ferra’s done.”

“Ah, a pinch hop? I hate those.”

“I’m not paying you to do things you like,” she said.

Orn leaned close to Drake and whispered in an aside, “That’s why we call her captain and not madam.”

“What did you say?” she tried to clarify.

“Nothing! Pinch hop, got it. Any place in particular or…”

“The usual.”

“I knew you’d say that,” he waved off the comm line without waiting for a dismissal and brought up the nav screen himself. Pinching off three close sectors of the galaxy, he put in the request and spun back to Drake.

“Well, ruggedly boring archeologist, you ever been in a pinch hop before?”

Drake shook his head. He could handle putting in the request, getting through wyrm space, and orbit parking. Anything more complicated than that was either handled by a computer or a driving golem. Not that he’d admit it if the captain was in the room.

Orn folded his fingers, getting a grinding metal sound followed by the pop and smiled, “Yer in for a treat. Fer?”

“What?” she shouted over the comm.

“My loving wife. How’s the MGC whoozit?”

“Installed.”

“Already? I thought you said a half hour.”

She snorted over the line, “I always lie on install times. I’m an engineer. Fire her up and let’s see if this works. Should be good for three maybe four pinches if you keep them short.”

“Was planning on it,” Orn said and saluted to the empty space before closing off the comm. “Not to scare you or nothing, but you might want to hold on to something.”

Drake glanced around the sparse bridge. Aside from the acrylic console, the single pilot chair, and the walls, it was bare.

“There’s nothing to grab.”

“Well, hold onto yourself then,” Orn answered and activated the buckles across his chair. Flipping back around, he lifted the MGC from its slumber to envelop the ship for a pinch. Drake clicked his tongue to banish the burnt metal taste and paused. Pulling a hand from the tight clasp across his chest, he watched sparks dance in the air.

The pilot seemed to sense them too as he flexed his gloved fingers glowing a haunting orange, “That’s new.”

“Is this safe?” Drake asked, glancing around. Maybe he should have asked that question before they set down on a orc world and snapped one of their barbaric pieces of tech into the engines.

“One way to find out,” Orn said. He waved his arm around and pointed to space as the wyrm sliced open. Holding tight to the controls, he drove the ship onward. Golden light coated every surface now, the glare rising as they slipped into the wyrm. Reds and blues of the pinch, normally hovering so close to striking distance, seemed to keep back as if afraid of the ship.

Drake leaned over to stare out the windows. He’d worked through plenty of wyrms in his life, most of them with his eyes focused solely on the flashing control board. This one felt sharper than usual, the shifting clouds of the energy and color cracking in outline. “Have you ever seen it look like that?” he asked the dwarf, but Orn had both his hands splayed across the control manipulating the tiniest of buttons.

“What? Yeah, sure. It’s fine. Here come’s pinch two,” he shouted, and twisted the stick to the right. The ship banked and a new crack formed in the wyrm, but not to the black of regular space.

“Hold your bottom!” Orn warned. The ship sailed smoothly until the nose bumped into this second space. An energy wave kicked it to the side, catching Drake off guard. He reached to steady himself and bounced back at another kick from the left. This second pinch wasn’t the swoops and swirls of red and blue but jagged edges done in greens and yellows. These energy blasts, or whatever they were, struck violently into each other, collapsing into white something that burned to stare at.

“Is this normal?” Drake asked.

“Shit no,” Orn said, “it’s second level. Three more seconds.” A massive green wave struck the port side of the ship, kicking her up. Drake’s fingers dug onto the panel as his feet slid.

“One second!” Orn shouted, “Here comes the third,” and he pivoted the ship so it crested along a green energy wave. Drake scrabbled to keep upright, all of his body weight depending upon the kindness of his biceps. He turned to the window and watched a third pinch unfurl.

At first hope filled him as blackness erupted, but then he saw the whirl of silver and purple winding around in the ether.

“Oh shit,” was all he managed before the ship broke through this third and final heart of wyrm space.

The concussions shook his meager grip and Drake flew towards Orn’s chair, but the pilot turned into the skid just in time. Unfortunately, Drake’s body couldn’t compensate as quickly, and his knees smashed into the floor. Tremors rattled up his bones and into his brain. He tried to grab onto his head to stop his teeth from breaking free.

“When…does…this…end?” he cried to the dwarf.

Orn grunted, controls shaking out of his hands. He grabbed back onto the stick twice, overcompensating and almost sending the ship into a spin. “Almost…there,” he said, veins throbbing in his forehead.

Drake rose from his crouch to watch the silver and purple flashes bang together and shatter across this hell space. He swore he’d never complain about regular old wyrm space again. Energy bolts smashed into the ship, tipping it every way imaginable.

“AAAHHH!!!” Orn screamed, the stick rattling in his hands, as he shoved it towards the rising curtain. Green and yellow lanced across the hull, then red and blue, and as terrifyingly as it began, the ship tumbled into regular space and the shaking stopped.

Drake fell back onto his ass, his eyes agape to make certain that was just black and stars out there. Slowly, he turned to the dwarf to find only his left hand shaking. The right was somehow stationary.

“That was…” Drake began when the comm line buzzed.

Without taking his eyes off the panel Orn flipped it open. The captain’s voice cut over, “We out of the pinch hop?”

“Yes,” Orn said, swallowing.

“Good job. I barely felt it.”

The men turned to each other swearing an unspoken pact to never mention how close they came to soiling themselves. They also both added another tick to the “why the captain is fucking scary” list.

“When you’re done up there, I need you to get down to the med bay.”

“Why? Wait, since when do we have a med bay?”

“There’s someone you need to meet. Va-Captain out.”


	14. Breaking Free

Wires lashed out of the ceiling, electricity sparking for the nearest head. Before lancing across an exposed scalp, a leathered hand grabbed them to wrangle back.

“Ferra, do you have to do this now?” Variel asked, her hand submerged in a bowl.

The engineer arced an eyebrow and stepped higher on the ladder. She stuffed the bundled wire back in with its brethren and unrolled a wad of electrical tape. “If you want power here, yeah? If you don’t, I’ve got a book waiting for me.”

“Fine, do your job,” Variel grumbled before turning to the orc. “How much longer do I have to sit in this goop?”

Monde threw an old cruise uniform overtop his sweater vest, already marking “lab coat” down on the expanding list of necessary supplies. They found a marked box of latex gloves, but upon opening them discovered it dissolved into one massive lump of latex. It looked like a rat king — that glob of rats snagged together by their tails — but formed from hands. A hand king. Variel stuffed it down the recycler while Monde sanitized his palms for a few minutes.

He slipped on an old pair of kitchen scrubbing gloves, the fingertips chewed away from technically legal chemicals, and prodded Variel’s submerged hand. “Honest truth, I am uncertain how long this will take. Until it falls off.”

“Or my hand shrinks and can’t support this damn thing anymore,” she grumbled a knot building on her shoulders from stooping over the counter.

“I say we try the microwave idea,” Orn shouted from his perch upon the pool table. He surrounded himself with boxes of recovered med supplies. Supposed to be tasked with sorting needle sizes, the dwarf found more fun in prodding his captain.

Variel sighed, “What microwave idea?”

“Take your hand, put it in the microwave, and hit start. That’ll melt something.”

“Like my hand. How would we even close the door?”

Orn shrugged, then made a fist and punched the air. Variel rolled her eyes, “You want me to destroy our only microwave.”

“Oh, good point. Sorry hon!” he called to his wife, the lone lover of frozen food wraps reheated in the filth encrusted appliance. Ferra couldn’t be bothered to properly clean the thing, but she got it running so efficiently sometimes Variel was tempted to take it along on bad missions as a backup weapon. “Evil ones, taste the wrath of my 11 power Nukedom now with glass turntable!”

Ferra grumbled, her blonde head poking out of the ceiling where she installed the stolen shuttle bay light. The old chandelier rested on the floor, its last remaining bulb shattered by the sulking human. He hadn’t said anything after meeting Monde, only grumbled and sodded off to the corner. For the first time, Variel was ecstatic in picking up the orc. If he got this damn relic off her she might propose marriage.

“Try removing your hand now,” Monde said, gesturing to Variel.

She picked it up, the viscous goo flopping back into the mixing bowl. “Here goes nothing,” she said, latching her dry fingers onto the sides and pulling. “Gods damn it!” She tried to slip her fingernails under but there was no breaking the seal. In a rage, she clawed at her own flesh underneath, trying to pick it like a scab. The goo dribbled into her superfluous cut and burned as alcohol mixed with abrasion.

“I was certain the alcohol would dehydrate your hand and the gel mute the electrical impulses we detected.”

“All it did was make my hand smell like a bar toilet.”

Monde sighed, his fingers lightly turning over her hand. Unlike orc women, he kept his claws filed so far down they could almost pass for human nails. “It is possible there is a deeper connection beyond the superficial.”

“You mean it’s in love with our captain?” Orn asked.

“I…”

“Ignore him,” Variel said, getting a stuck out tongue from her pilot. She returned the favor.

“I mean to suggest there could be something it is injecting into your body to maintain the connection.”

His words sunk in and Variel glared at the glistening ruby star. She tried to keep calm, to maintain that necessary air of command, but her body being compromised was not something she prepared for. An alien, gods-only-knew-what perched upon her hand and they had no idea what it was or what it could/would do. She wouldn’t think of a bomb, dribbling the catalyst into her blood.

“Bit of advice, doc,” Orn said, inching closer, “‘ancient relic is maybe injecting something into your body’ is not one of those things you flat out tell the patient.”

“Ah, yes, I’m sorry,” he said, dancing back and forth on his med-clogs.

 Variel shook the doom, banishing the terror to the back of her mind, “Can’t you run a scanner over it, see if my body’s growing a monster, or a bomb, or something?”

“You think it’s making baby face eaters in there?” Orn said, pointing at her stomach in terror.

“How the shit should I know? I’m plucking at anything. How about it, Doc?”

Monde laughed at that, “A full three dimensional body scan with what? This broken pipetter? A wad of brittle cotton? Perhaps if I slap enough pink plastic bandages across it, they’ll tell me what rests inside.”

“Wow,” Orn cut in, “I had no idea orcs knew sarcasm. I like the new guy.”

Variel was less impressed. “Fine, what would you need to do that?”

“A level three med lab with real time MRI and perhaps access to a molecular kit,” he answered truthfully.

“And we have…”

“This!” Orn shouted, holding up a 10 gauge needle, the silver tip as long as his hand.

“What the hell is that used for?!” Variel shouted, waving at the monstrous thing.

“Deep muscle injections of the…something with trolls,” Monde amended at her look of horror. “I could take a blood sample, see if I spot abnormalities in it with the…” the orc sighed as he gestured to the microscope, “that.”

Variel nodded, still eyeing up the gigantic troll needle. “That makes sense.”

“Mr. Lidoffad, pass me a needle. Not the large one! A 25 gauge. On second thought, I’ll get it myself.” Monde shoved aside Orn’s insistence that he take the monstrous prick and dug into the box.

Out of the corner of her eye, Variel caught a look from Drake. The broody whinging switched to cocky douchebag as he stared from her to the needle and back. She growled at his obvious implications. Sure, you’re such a tough guy now. We’ll see if your tone changes when an orc comes barreling down upon you while wielding one.

Monde returned, a much smaller but still pokey needle in his fingers. He unlaced a ligature from a pile draped around his neck and tightened it around Variel’s bicep. “Make a fist, please,” he said dropping down.

She caught Drake’s smirk and dug in so deep her knuckles turned white.

“Excellent, I believe I see a vein.”

“You believe you do?” she asked, trying to not jump out of her skin.

“Human ones are nimble, ah,” he dabbed at her skin with more of that sanitizing goop.

“Monde, have you ever drawn blood from a human before?”

“Of course,” he said, and yanked the needle’s cap out in his teeth. Through the obstruction he added, “in simulations.”

Before Variel could respond he drove the needle in, her blood quickly filling the glass tube. She squirmed from the metal biting into her skin, but didn’t blanch at the blood. If there was one thing in her life she was used to, it was that.

Monde removed the needle and placed his thumb over the hole. “Excellent work, Captain.”

She clapped her hand overtop his, letting him remove her sample from the needle. “Are you going to give me a lolly pop now?” she asked sarcastically.

The orc brows furrowed as he said, “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Orn jumped off the table and skipped towards her, “I do.” He passed over a small lime one, the round stick snapped at the bottom. “For being such a good girl and not crying.”

Variel glared at him and batted his hand away. Orn shrugged and unwrapped the sucker, shoving it in his mouth. His face puckered as he learned why most people didn’t eat lolly pops that were a good century old.

“How long until you know anything?” Variel asked.

Monde scoffed, “It is highly unlikely I will learn much from this. All I have at my disposal are a few stains I can make from some common items, and a primary school level microscope. I can probably tell if you are not a vegetable though.”

“Oh, that’s good. I’ve always suspected the Captain was part potato myself.”

“Then what was the point?” Variel waved her arms, forgetting she was supposed to cut off the blood flow. It dribbled off her elbow drawing the eyes of the non-medical men in the room and causing them to blanch.

“To build up an index. I will take another sample in say five hours, then another and compare them. If it is injecting something into your system it might show up over time.”

“Great, great, so we have to wait a few days to maybe learn that this could be doing a thing to me that might not even get it off in the first place.”

Monde shrugged, uncertain what he could offer. Checking the seal on her blood, he weighed out a balance and slipped both into a centrifuge. “Have you had anyone translate the writing upon the relic?”

“Writing, what writing?” Variel yanked her hand to her face and tipped the metal star around.

“No, here,” Monde pulled her hand away and shined a torchlight onto the ruby. Text appeared at the back of the bleached stone, but it was all gibberish.

“Orn, try to hold your PALM on this,” she said, gesturing the dwarf closer. They tried every algorithm and option, even a few of the made up languages teens stuck in for shits and giggles, but nothing recognized the letters visible only with flame or a good lightbulb.

“Do you know what planet this was first discovered on?” Monde asked.

“No…yes. Yes, it was in that stub listing,” Variel scanned through her own PALM digging up the Ruby Star listing. “Ates, it’s from the planet called Ates. Orn,” she nodded at her pilot, “you know what to do.”

“Aye aye, Ma’am,” he saluted, sticking the offending sucker to his forehead. Variel tried to say something but he already ran out of the door.

She flexed her elbow, letting the clump of cotton fall. No blood trickled across her skin. Licking her fingers, she rubbed the dried blood off and nodded at Monde, “You did good.”

The orc smiled, his body sagging in relief. She wasn’t planning on throwing him off the ship if he failed to get the damn thing off. Probably. Okay, maybe if he came after her with that huge needle.

Variel caught the glare of Drake and she grabbed onto his arm. He turned away from Monde, sorting his needles to question her contact. “Come with me,” she said, holding him so tight he had no choice, “we have to talk.”


	15. Man Pain

Drake kicked his shoe into a lobotomized pinball machine. Its innards were long picked clean, but the chassis lay across the floor. The only bit of furniture in the room was a treadmill. He wasn’t certain if that made this the gym or game room. Depended on the type of person using it. His meal ticket shut the door and crossed her arms under that impressive pair she kept chained back.

“Well…” she asked.

“Well, what?” Drake growled, kicking into the pinball machine a few more times. It took the abuse amicably, just happy to be a part of someone’s life.

“You’re moping like an exhausted toddler, or Orn after a sugar fast.”

“Oh, so you did notice. I thought you were too busy being all bestest friends with the enemy.”

“Enemy?” her eyebrow’s dipped in with confusion, “You mean Orn?”

“For…the war wasn’t that long ago!”

A sneer lifted that scar across her cheek, “Oh, this is about the Doctor.”

Drake shook his head at her acting as if he was the one overreacting, “We were blowing up their kind like three years ago.”

“Four,” she corrected.

“Maybe you were too busy mercing and smuggling in the reaches, but those Horns slaughtered our people by the thousands.”

A rage flashed across her face but it washed away as she snorted, “And ‘our people’ were killing ‘em all right back.”

“They’re barbarians, I know them better than you ever could,” he shouted, kicking harder into the pinball machine. Each emphasis ricochetted as his foot crunched deeper into the flimsy metal.

“Really? You can prove that.”

“Yeah, I can. You haven’t seen what they’re capable of. The depths of depravity orcs reach. And not just in war.”

“Oh?” she seemed amused by all this, as if he was a blue-hair who read one too many war reports and in a medicated fog, dreamed herself in the middle of it all. Cluck cluck, it was so terrible the way those orcish troops swooped across the ring theater. But we sure got them with our big ol’ wyvern ships.

Drake stepped away from the battered pinball machine closer to her. She didn’t shy away, but her hands slackened in case she suddenly had to grab and throw him around some more. But he only glared into her eyes and hissed, “I was from Valin.”

“Ah,” her eyes momentarily danced away the same way everyone’s did when they pressed him for his birth planet.

“You know about it, then?”

“In a way.”

“Then you know what the orcs did to that colony, how they vaporized children and women. That they pulled people from their homes and executed them in the streets. Civilians, normal colonizers just trying to get to church.” Spittle dotted Drake’s mouth by the end of his spiel and he wiped it away. Exhaustion clambered up his legs and into his chest, weighing across his heart. He sagged, his shoulders falling as he stumbled away from her.

But she didn’t blush, didn’t stammer or try to change the subject. Instead she twisted that head, her eyes as cold as an elf’s.

“You can’t know that.”

“I was from Valin, born and raised.”

“And you’re still alive,” her voice was infuriatingly calm, “which means you weren’t there when the attack occurred.”

Drake scoffed, throwing his arms wide, “Yeah, shame on that, would have saved you a lot of trouble if your orc friend out there had killed me dead, eh?”

“He wouldn’t because men don’t fight in their army.”

“Are you the fucking Speciespedia now?”

Her eyes narrowed as she eyed him up, “My choices in who I hire to serve my ship have no affect on your life. Keep it to yourself.”

“If he slits all our throats in the night it sure as shit does.”

Her eyes glanced to the ceiling and she held up a finger. The pulsing light of the ruby illuminated it from below, “If you’re from Valin how are you not in the Bear’s service?”

Ah, shit. Drake rubbed his hands, realized his lying tell, and threw them apart. He had to find the one space rat with an interest in military history.

“Because,” she continued, “I remember all the dependents and survivors were pulled into the Lord’s court. A bit of grandstanding on her part, but she always loved a good show.”

“None of your damn business,” Drake insisted. “And who’d would want to return to Arda? It’s just politics and worrying about pissing in the wrong urinal, eating the wrong grape, starting a war.”

“Oh, I get it. You use Valin to get what you want. Pass off a sob story, get someone to take pity, then rob them when their back’s turned.” The smug face curled her scar up so it looked like a jagged C circling her nose.

Drake glared at her insinuation, “That was my home. I spent almost six years of my life on that colony. My family was scattered from that attack! Fine, so I didn’t legally have a claim to a crest. You caught me. Want to yank me around the ship some more? Maybe parade my ass about to show how tough you are.”

He sagged down, his ass skimming near the hole in the pinball machine. Dropping his head into his hands he muttered, “I still lost friends, acquaintances, my grammar school was incinerated because it wasn’t worth preserving. They said it stank of burning flesh until the end.”

“And now you judge all orcs for a war in which humans did much the same.”

Drake’s hands dropped away and he stared at her in shock, “Who’s side are you on?”

“Mine,” she admitted, “and the one that keeps my ship and crew in one piece.”

“Well, aren’t you a loyal one,” he muttered to himself.

She snorted at that. “I don’t care what tragedy and travesty you need to convince yourself your life isn’t your own fucking fault. You can even dream up being the lost son of a queen. But it doesn’t infect my crew. Leave Monde alone or you’ll answer to a lot more than the Dwarven Transit Taskforce.”

Drake couldn’t miss the neon threat. She had the numbers, she had the ship, and she had whatever that Gene was. He nodded his head, falling into line. Not like he was going to actually attack an orc. He wasn’t suicidal. “Fine, let’s get to this planet and get this over with, so I can get off this damn ship.”

“Good,” Variel said. She waved her hand unlocking the door.

“So…Captain. You sussed out that I spent the war hiding in unaffiliated territory, but where were you?”

She paused in the doorway, the ruby star leaning into the frame as she said, “I was cleaning up the bodies on Valin.”


End file.
